Worth Revisting

In the wake of Kate's win on Sunday.

Predicting the 2010 Oscars

The day after the big show, the blogosphere is up and raring to go for 2010. Here's a glimpse from Kris Tapley, at InContention, and Jeffery Wells, from Hollywood Elsewhere, as to their opening salvo of guesses for what might be the big winner a year from now.

Oscar's Wrap Up

As last night's Academy Awards ceremony came to a close, so did the cinematic year that was 2008, a span of 365 that many felt was underwhelming, while others reveled in the releases. As I've written before, 2008 was underwhelming for me, save for some stone cold and could-be classics. The depth wasn't there, the variety didn't quite match 2007. Still, I look forward to the Oscars like a junkie to a fix so Sunday's ceremony was a welcome treat and with that said, all in all, I enjoyed the broadcast, although not always agreeing with it although I'm not sure there is anything on par with the Crash fiasco of a few years back.

Highlights:
-James Franco, Seth Rogen and Janusz Kaminski (!) in Judd Apatow's wonderful montage of the year in comedy, which including a brilliant skewering of some of the big Oscar bait. Franco is an immensely talented guy who I feel like we've only seen shades of what he can really do. 2008 was a great year for him between his film redeeming performance in Pineapple Express to his excellent work in Milk and this seemed like a good way for it to end.



-Tina Fey, Steve Martin and the Screenplay Nominees. A brilliant moment from two of the world's funniest that was topped off by Dustin Lance Black's immensely deserved win for Best Original Screenplay. Black's script is brilliant and heartbreaking, a timely portrait of pivotal figure that is frequently forgotten by the general public. Black's speech was heartfelt, moving and all too true, the best of the evening.



-Sean Penn's win for his impressive work in Milk. While I would have been content with either Penn or Rourke (and I think Rourke's speech would have been more moving and entertaining), Penn's performance is too good to miss. It's a subtle, moving portrayal that deserves all the accolades it has received. Rourke's work is equally as impressive but this was Penn's award and he rightfully came out on top. Also, I try to avoid politicizing here but his remarks about Prop 8 were dead on. Those who wish to discriminate against gays are no different than those who tried to destroy the civil rights movements of the 1960's. We look back at those people as uneducated bigots and I believe that, in due time, those with anti-gay agendas will appear no different.



-Penelope Cruz's win for Vicky Cristina Barcelona, a transcendent performance in a criminally underseen and underrated film. She's a talented, charismatic performer and her performance in VCB is her best to date.



-Heath Ledger's win for The Dark Knight, the only win of note for the biggest film of the year. This is the last time the Academy will be able to award an actor who seemed to be becoming of his generation's best and thankfully, it doesn't have to go to a sub-par performance. Even the most TDK haters have issues trying to critique Ledger's brilliant, searing and disturbing work.



Letdowns
-The overwhelming Slumdog victory. I believe that Boyle deserves it but the rest of it rings hollow to me as I've noted here before. It went 8 for 10 on the evening and very few of those were the right choices. I hate to sound like a fanboy hitting back at a film I wasn't crazy about but this was not the best film of 2008 by any stretch of the imagination and nothing anyone will say will convince me that it was any greater than any number of films, including most of the other Best Picture nominees, most particularly Van Sant's Milk.

-The length was a bit much. It seemed like it was moving along pretty well at the half way point but the second half of the show began to drag a little bit, not enough for me to want to turn it off but enough for me to understand non-cinephiles tuning out.

-A general lack of surprises. The only award that stunned me (and seemingly the film community) was Best Foreign Film, which many felt was a shoe-in for Bashir or The Class. It appears that very few people have seen Departures (hell, even A.O. Scott at the NY Times admitted to not having seen it) so I believe it's win was a stunning turn. The category was already one of controversy with the snub of the supposedly tremendous Gomorrah and I'm not sure this isn't more ammunition for the complainers.

Overall, as I said earlier, I enjoyed the evening but with the Oscar's, it doesn't take much to keep me interested. It's unfortunate that Slumdog's big night will obscure the other winners but many have pointed out this morning that it's win may signal a new path in Hollywood. As the recession bores down and studios have less money to make the big Oscar contenders, 2009 may be a year of small films making big splashes next February. Until then, thanks for reading! Enjoy 2009!

And the Best Director Oscar Goes To...

Danny Boyle. Congrats man, you're a hell of a talent who is the sole reason for Slumdog working at all. With his Directors Guild win last night, Boyle has more or less locked down the Oscar win, which is too bad for David Fincher, who's work on Benjamin Button is nearly as impressive.

Newsweek's Oscar Roundtable

A nice, yet kind of awkward (given Sally Hawkins got screwed out of a nomination) roundtable from a talented group of stars: Langella, Pitt, Hathaway, Downey Jr., Hawkins, Rourke. If you've got the time, watch all 8 parts for a solid 45 minutes of entertaining talk. Perhaps NSFW due to some coarse language. Click on the big play button to start the vids.

Slumdog Thoughts

Having seen Slumdog alittle over a month ago, I've had time to sit back and really think about it. Being a HUGE fan of Danny Boyle and his previous work (28 Days Later, for my money, is as good of a horror film as any other released in the past 25 years), I have to say that I continue to be disappointed with Slumdog. I can understand why people like, even love it, but I have to think that some of those people find the film overly original or fresh. I also have to think that those people have not seen City of God or City of Men (either the TV show or feature length film companion), both of which deal with extreme poverty in massive cities and the attempts to escape the harsh nature of live in poor areas.

Both of the Meirelles projects (he directed the former, produced the latter) seem to bristle with a constant vitality. This isn't to say that Slumdog doesn't feel alive at points as it most certainly does, perhaps as much as any other film this fall, but never does it match the sheer rush of either of the Brazillian films. City of God may be more violent in its drug trade narrative focus but it also features a greater range of emotion. The more gut-wrenching scenes in Slumdog (the torture and mutiliation scenes come to mind) don't match the sheer heart in the throat points of City of God (there is nothing remotely close to the power of this scene, apologies for the sound being off and in another language). Slumdog never wants to take the real horror of those situations to their logical endpoint. Rather, it wants to stay as an almost Dickensian fable about poor kids in the big city. However, the inclusion of these thin line walking scenes which are too in your face to label the film as an audience pleaser, too reserved to actually make a true impression. It seemed to me that Slumdog didn't know what it wanted to be.

For those who think of City of God as being only a violent exploration of favela life, there are more than enough moments of genuine joy and exuberance that break through the darkness. Yet, City of God's blend seems more cohesive and fleshed out. Where as the horrific moments of City of God seem earned and necessary to the film, those moments in Slumdog seem so much more forced, so much less a necessity.

It's unfortunate that, as I believe Boyle to be a true master, Slumdog seems to be the film he's most remembered and adored for. His previous works (28 Days Later, Trainspotting, Millions, hell, even Sunshine in it's flawed glory) struck a much deeper chord with me than Slumdog ever did. It's not to say that Slumdog isn't a good, noteworthy work that adds to Boyle illustrious filmmography but to have it sweep the major awards and dominate critic circles best-of-lists seems like overpraise of the highest order.

The Outsider's Oscar Nominations

When the Oscar nominations were announced last week, there was a fair amount of crying about different categories. In the spirit, here are my own personal nominations for the Oscars. In the coming weeks, I'll mark down who should win my nominations, who should win the real nominations and then the night of the Oscars, who will win the Oscars.

Best Picture
The Dark Knight
Wall-E
Milk
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Best Actor
Sean Penn – Milk
Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler
Benecio Del Toro – Che
Clint Eastwood – Gran Torino
Frank Langella – Frost/Nixon

Best Actress
Meryl Streep – Doubt
Kate Winslet – Revolutionary Road
Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Cate Blanchett – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Angelina Jolie – Changeling

Best Supporting Actor
Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Phillip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt
Robert Downey Jr. – Tropic Thunder
Michael Shannon – Revolutionary Road
Emile Hirsch – Milk

Best Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Frances McDormand – Burn After Reading
Viola Davis – Doubt
Taraji P. Henson – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Rosemarie DeWitt – Rachel Getting Married

Best Director
David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Christopher Nolan – The Dark Knight
Gus Van Sant – Milk
Sam Mendes – Revolutionary Road
Steven Soderbergh – Che

Finalists for Oscar's Best Foreign Language Film

After last year's disastrous snubbing of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days by the Oscar Foreign Language committee, it seems like the group has done it again. Conspicuously absent from this year's finalists is Gomorrah, by director Matteo Garrone, one of the most critically acclaimed films of the year. The blogosphere is up in arms over this, as the Academy proves again that more often than not, their Foreign Language category isn't always the best barometer when truly determining the best Foreign film of the year. Here are the finalists, from which the five nominees will be selected:

Revanche (Gotz Spielmann, Austria)
The Necessities of Life (Benoit Pilon, Canada)
The Class (Laurent Cantet, France)
The Baader Meinhof Complex (Uli Edel, Germany)
Waltz with Bashir (Ari Folman, Israel)
Departures (Yojiro Takita, Japan)
Tear This Heart Out (Roberto Sneider, Mexico)
Everlasting Moments (Jan Troell, Sweden)
3 Monkeys (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey)

Courtesy of Variety.

Oscar Round Up

The Oscars, despite its overblown grandeur which everyone always complains about yet still watches devotedly, is always a worthwhile venture that can usually affirm film’s importance in our culture. It is difficult to watch, as a fan of film, and not be happy for Martin Scorsese, who finally got over the hump and was able to join his fellow directors from the "New Hollywood" of the 1970's as a recognized winner of an Oscar. When Spielberg, Coppola and Lucas, three of Scorsese's close contemporaries read his name, they were as excited as the rest of us, for their longtime friend had finally done it. He'd finally gained acceptance into the most mainstream of film academies. After all, isn't that what we all hope for? That our favorite artists are acknowledged by the general public as being visionaries, as being masters, as being the best? Deep down, even the most hardened, cynical art house fans had to love the moment.

Sure, this wasn't Scorsese’s best directing job but it was one of the best directing jobs of the year, hands down. As Patrick Goldstein so eloquently pointed out in his column today in the LA Times, Scorsese took the type of film typically ignored by the Academy and went to town, creating a piercing, sharp witted crime thriller with a sizzling script and wonderful performances. This is the type of film that normally would be overlooked by the Oscars, shot down in favor of the more politically minded and timely Babel, a film more likely to look dated 20 years from now. The Departed, on the other hand, is the type of film that tells a timeless story of good and evil, wisely updating the Warner gangster films of the 1930's to our new era. It deals with topical themes yet never overly so, slipping in sly remarks about the Patriot Act instead of drumming its meaning into our heads. This is not to dismiss Babel, which is filmmaking of the highest order, magnificently balancing its interlocking narratives and themes with stunning precision but merely to praise The Departed, which is more sly and subtle than people realize. Sure, its violence is over the top and the profanity flows eloquently but in terms of sheer entertainment, in terms of overall filmmaking, there are no scenes that don't soar, that don't feature a moment that makes an audience in the know grin. Of the nominated films, it is a great choice for the best.
Other thoughts on the night:

-Jennifer Hudson once again proved with her performance in the Dreamgirls medley that her Oscar is well deserved. Years from now, people will not be talking Mirren in The Queen as the performance of the year. It'll be Hudson's star making role that will continue to turn heads.

-Those dance numbers were cool and all but by the time midnight was rolling along, one couldn't help but feel like it was starting to become overkill. I feel like the show would have better served by placing all the numbers into one segment, leaving the end of the show solely for the awards. The major categories (Lead Actor/Actress, Director and Picture) didn't come around until the midnight hour on the East Coast. Even the presentation of the Best Picture seemed rushed and an afterthought after Marty's magical moment.

-If there is a better ambassador for film history than Martin Scorsese, I don't know who that would be. He is knowledgeable and seems genuinely excited when he speaks of films past. One needs to look no further than his expansive A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies or My Voyage to Italy to see and hear his vibrant views into what has been and what will be. The man is a genius and he finally got his due. Kudos to Marty, he's earned it.

-George Clooney is today's equivalent of Cary Grant, a personality so magnetic and charismatic that everything seems so effortless. He has an impeccable and daring taste in film and over the past 10 years (Batman and Robin excluded) has established himself as one of the greatest talents in Hollywood. Even his off the cuff joke about Al Gore was a hit. He’s the type of guy you would want to hang out/go out drinking with.

-Clint Eastwood is as gracious and humble a star as I have ever seen. He has become the industry’s finest director and his attitude doesn’t represent it in the slightest. He seems approachable, grounded and most of all, thankful for all that the industry has afforded him. Years from now, the 2000’s will be looked upon as the decade that Clint Eastwood went from superstar to bona fide genius. His legend grows with everything he does.

-Quite frankly, I find the discussion around the violent end to The Departed to be tiresome. Why go see a Scorsese crime thriller if you are so put off by violence? And why does a film being violent make it less worthy of an award? Isn’t violence, however unnecessary and unfortunate, a part of society and should it be explored like any other cultural ill?

-Forrest Whitaker seems like a great guy who has the utmost respect for his peers and his craft. His speech was eloquent and moving. Glad to see him get recognized.

-Disappointed that Jackie Earle Haley didn’t pick up a win. I feel like his speech would have been interesting seeing how this is basically the first work he’s done in years and it was phenomenal. Let’s hope his career stays resurrected.

-Few people could completely shave his head and get away with it. Jack is one of those people. At least, I think he is.

-Good to see Pan’s Labyrinth walk away with some wins, but was very surprised to see it lose Best Foreign Film. Its truly magical and demands to be watched.

-Speaking of which, The Lives of Others win for Best Foreign Film may have been the upset of the evening. I think pretty much everyone and their mother was expecting a win out of Pan’s there.

-I had forgotten how wonderful the score to Babel was and am glad that won. Its final scenes are heightened infinitely by its sweeping melodies.

-The montage of the great foreign films of the past was spectacular, reminding the American viewers of the cinemas outside our borders. Every single one of those films mentioned are worthwhile. Get those Netflix queues going and watch some of those classics. You’ll find some filmmakers that are giants of the medium. I’m ready to go watch 8 ½ again and get swept away by Fellini’s touch.

-Michael Mann’s montage of America/Americans throughout history was slightly disappointing only because he hinted at something far greater. I love how he used racial portrayals that today are deemed antiquated and ignorant. There is no point in sweeping US Cinema’s racial past under the rug. However, it didn’t seem as if those clips built towards anything, but just sort of appeared. Maybe it was the time constraints but knowing what Mann can do, especially with montage, I was hoping for more.

-I finished my blog last night by saying it was a good show and by that I meant I could agree with most of the awards: I felt like the right people were honored. Overall, the show was kind of slow and as it neared the fourth hour, even the most devoted viewer’s patience was being tried.

-Ellen was kind of blah to me, never really getting going. The crowd seemed to like her enough merely because they were never being truly made fun of.

-Will Ferrell, Jack Black and John C. Reilly killed their musical number, bringing the house down with their entertaining and sharp jabs at the ceremony. It’s always much more fun to see Hollywood have a sense of humor about themselves. I just wish Steve Carell had come on. That would have been truly amazing.

Live Oscar Blog

Hello and welcome to Oscar Night! The live blogging will start with the show but I wanted to check prior to the jump off. Please feel free to comment as much as and whenever you like. Enjoy folks!

7:52- 38 minutes to showtime.

8:25- 5 minutes to showtime.

8:27- 3 minutes to showtime. Chris Connelly seemed jacked to be walking around the Kodak. He's done pretty well for himself considering his modest start on MTV News. Now he is kissing ass on a red carpet. Way to go Chris.

8:30- The show opens with that movie guy's voice (you know, that guy) and a video montage of the nominees mocking the process. Clint lets us know that they were nominated for "Director, Picture, stuff like that", followed by the all the noms who have lost x number of times letting us know their thoughts. Jennifer Hudson is annoying. Forrest Whitake is awesome. Eddie Murphy is silent. Overall, a pretty decent start to show. Then the back patting begins by having all the noms stand up, cheering each other. Marty is grinning like a fool, gotta love his energy. Here comes Ellen...

8:36- ...And she is in a suit. I guess that first part was by Errol Morris. I thought it'd be later in the show. Now I'm alittle disappointed.

8:39- Ellen is stammering and making the audience laugh. Our room is pretty much silent. She makes it known that its the "most international Oscars ever" which I agree is worth mentioning. "Spain is representing" (Oy).

8:42- Poking fun at Abigal Breslin and Peter O' Toole. O' Toole looks like he's enjoying himself on his sixth nomination. We move onto Hudson (who still annoys me but deserves to win). She says something forgettable.

8:45- Speaking of keeping the speechs short, this whole opening monologue shtick should be cut down to like maximum of 5 minutes. A gospel choir just walked as I wrote that. Good god, lets get to Best Sound Editing.

8:47- First Category! Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig to present Best Art Direction. Both look very classy in their restrained outfits. I'm pulling for Pan's.

8:48- Pan's wins! Great film, hopefully the first of a number of wins tonight. A nice short speech.
Next Category with Maggie G. to tell about the Scientific and Technical Awards. No one outside of the industry knows a thing about this or cares. I think its kind of interesting.

8:51- Backlighting with some dancers who tumbled across the stage and formed the Oscar. The entire room just did a WTF.

8:55- Will Ferrell is singing about the Oscars with a huge fro. Guy's got a pretty good set of pipes. Here comes Jack Black! Their chemistry on the first 30 seconds is better than the entire chemistry betwene the entire cast of Crash. John C. Reilly is here too. They're bringing out the big guns! Lets go Carrell! Damn, not looking like it but thats the segment of the show. Hands down.

8:59- Best Makeup is (Let's go Pan's!)... The winner is Pan's! 2 for 2!

9:01- Will Smith's Kid and Abigal Breslin are out there being so cute. The crowd is eating it up. Best animated short is...The Danish Poet. Here comes the kids...Best Live Action Short: West Bank Story which is a musical set in the West Bank. Netflix, here I come.

9:08- Here comes Clint to highlight Letters From Iwo Jima. I love this man in a solidly man to man relationship. I would love to meet him and just sit down and talk about his life. Guy has seen a ton.

9:13- Nice commercial break. This is strenuous. Here comes the Hollywood Sound Effects Choir. They're creating sound effects with their voices. Reminds me of high school choir. Some solid clips behind them. Not a bad segment but no Ferrell/Black/Reilly.

9:16- Steve Carrell and Greg Kinnear here for Best Sound Editing. Good year for Bob Asman/Rob Murray. Letters from Iwo Jima wins.

9:19- James McAvoy and Jessica Biel for Best Sound Mixing. The winner is Dreamgirls. Seemed like an obvious choice seeing as its about "sound" as someone in the room pointed out. Don't know why I would have doubted it.

9:23- Rachel Weisz for Best Supporting Actor, one of the strongest categories of the night. Not a bad choice but I'm pulling for Haley. The winner is...Alan Arkin. The worst of the bunch. Great performance not worth a win in this category. Welcome to the Oscars. Solid speech from Arkin though. Made it almost worth while.

9:27- Ellen talks to Marty. If he doesn't win, I'm jumping out the window.

9:28- The dancers are back behind the sheet. What a waste of money. Just do clips of classic movies instead of this. Wait, they just turned into penguins. Keep 'em.

9:31- Clips from The Departed with Leo talking over them. What a movie this was. A crime classic.

9:32- James Taylor and Randy Newman to sing "Our Town". The sound is awful. Maybe if they worked on that instead of the dancers, we'd be in business. Oh wait, they turned into penguins. Get them to turn into the Tower of Babel and the rest of the show could be silent. I'm crossing my fingers. Melissa Etheridge now. This must be the medley portion of the show. Etheridge is wielding a bitching 12 string.

9:37-Leo and Al Gore. What a lineup for the Liberals. The show has gone "green". Thank goodness. Leo is spurring on Gore to announce his presidency. Gore is playing along and is here to take this opportunity to...be drowned out by the orchestra. O' Toole and Gore were loving it. Hilarity reigns...

9:44- And we're back. Jack is bald. What happened there? It better be for a role or something and not be Chemo. We can't lose Jack yet. Still too valuable to the industry.

Cameron Diaz is coming out to present Best Animated Feature. This seems like a shoe-in for Cars. We'll see. By the way, Diaz has gone downhill since The Mask. Anyway... NOT Cars! Wow, Pixar gets nothing. Very surprising there.

9:48- Nancy Meyers is here with a retrospective on screenwriting with all the expected clips. Sunset Blvd, The Philadelphia Story, Ed Wood, Shakespeare in Love, Misery, The Hours, numerous Woody Allen, Adaptation, The Shining, Get Shorty, More Sunset Blvd. As Good As It gets. Then shot of Jack writing in the audience. Good montage.

9:51- Helen Mirren and Tom Hanks here to present Best Adapted Screenplay. Borat's only choice. The winner is...William Monahan for The Departed. No surprise there. Won WGA, won this and gets cut off by the music. I'll tell ya, Tom Hanks seems to get that the Oscars are so overblown. He seems like one of the most down to earth superstars around.

9:58- The Wes Anderson AmEx commercial is on. I love this thing.

10:00- We've hit the hour left mark. Not a bad show so far. I'm really pulling for Marty.

10:01- Ellen is back with more antics with an Oscar carrier. Best Costume Design coming up from Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt. The winner (righfully so) is Marie Antoinette.

10:08- Cruise is out to give away the Humanitarian Award to Sherry Lansing. Made a lot of good movies at Paramount and did alot of good stuff. Way to be Sherry!

10:12- More antics with Clint. Clint just called Ellen darling. What a classy dude. I love 'em. No script for Clint, he's upset. Marty is lovin in. Spielbegr is going to take a pic of Clint and Ellen for her MySpace page. Clint's date is all about Ellen. Laughing her ass off. Here comes the always radiant Gwenyth Paltrow. She seems a real classical beauty. For Best Cinematography. Should be Children of Men or The Black Dahlia. The Prestige explanation was great. The winner is... Pan's Labyrinth. It's cleaning up, go see it.

10:18- The dancers are back for Little Miss Sunshine. Not as impressive as the penguins or the Oscar but still pretty cool. Still voting for keepin' 'em.

10:21- This live writing is tough. I'm exhausted.

10:22- Robert Downey Jr. and Naomi Watts. Good couple of actors. Great jab out of Downey at himself. I really like him. Best Visual Effects goes to...Pirates of the Carribbean. What a dumb win, what a dumb comment by the announcer about wanting to be a doctor.

10:25- Ken Watanabe and some women who's last name I can't spell is here to do something. Whats her face just mispronous Fellini's name. Give it over to Ken. By the way, he was phenomenal in Letters From Iwo Jima. Clips from Foreign Films. This could be good. Rashomon, Crouching Tiger, Z, La Strada, All About My Mother, Discreet Charm, Fanny and Alexander, The Bicycle Thief, 8 1/2, Cinema Paradiso, Black Orpheus, Amarcord, Nights of Cabria, Life is Beautiful, The Shope on Main Street. Wow, that killed. Such a awesome collection.

Clive Owen and Cate Blanchett here for Best Foreign Film. A good collection, I would really like to see The Lives of Others. Speaking of which, it just won. I'm going this week.

10:35- Dancers are back with Ellen and she just got eaten and then they made the logo from Snakes on a Plane. Wow, that was sweet.

10:35- George Clooney is here and he kills with a joke about drinking with Gore and how he wont be running for President. Coolest man on Earth (Clooney, not Gore). Best Supporting Actress nominees. Blanchett was really good in Notes on a Scandal, by far and away the best part of the movie. This seems like a formality. Hudson is a shoe-in. The winner is...Jennifer Hudson. Absolutely no surprise and definitely deserved. One of the most magnetic debut performances of all time. Seems actually moved. I'll retract my statement from earlier. Seems sincere where I thought she was a hot shot. Go Jen Go.

10:42- Another commercial break. I gotta use the bathroom. This is a struggle.

10:42- Clips from Babel with Inarritu, Blanchett talking over it. Just finished watching this again and its wonderful. I can understand why its divisive but I think its genius. Tremendous filmmaking.

10:43- Eva Green and Gael Garcia Bernal coming out. Bernal is awesome, up there with Clooney as one of the coolest on the planet. Here we go with Best Short Documentary. The Oscar goes to The Blood of Yingzhou District.

10:49- Jerry Seinfeld comes out and does his shtick and it never gets old. Then goes onto to introduce the nominees as five really "despressing" movies. I'm excited for Bee Movie. Should be interesting. The winner is... a shocker, An Inconvenient Truth.

10:58- Putting the finishing touches on the tribute to Ennio Morricone, one of the best composers (may be my personal favorite) of all time. Truely a musical visionary. They just left off Once Upon A Time in the West and The Battle of Algiers off of his list of movies. What the hell, those are two of his best. I guess you can't represent all 400. Well deserved. No way the guy can have an acceptance speech, he can't speak english but here he comes. Its in Italian so even Clint is standing there in confusion. Oh Wait! Clint speaks Italian! Kind of. What a guy. Ennio is cool, Clint is cooler. A great segment.

11:03- Apparently this isn't ending at 11:00. Still got like 5-6 categories to go. Ennio is still going and Quincy Jones was just shown nodding off.

11:08- P. Cruz and H. Jackman are here to weigh in on Best Original Score. Everything but Notes on a Scandal belongs. Can't complain unless its Glass. Babel wins.

11:11- Speech from Sid Ganis. Next.

11:14- Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire are here for Best Original Screenplay. I can't wait to see Pan's again. The winner is...Little Miss Sunshine. WGA nailed it. Two for Two.

11:18- The dancers are back. Eh, Make a shoe for the Devil Wears Prada. Let's keep it moving.

11:21- Commercial.

11:22- J.Lo is on the stage and is apparently a reason for HDTV. I dont know. Here comes a Dreamgirls medley. Should be good. Hudson is truly mesmerizing in this role. Tailored for her. Beyonce is on the case. The music in Dreamgirls was so so good. Its a movie that I thoroughly enjoyed but knew could be better. Can't blame any of the actors though. Really special performances. Here comes "Listen", Beyonce's show stopper. She is quite the talent. Has handled herself prefectly in her career and has no where to go but up. One of the better pop stars of today. I'll be excited to sit down again and watch it on its own terms, knowing fully what to expect. Here comes the gospel choir and its working. The music is tailored to be sung to the rafters. Cate Blanchett was just shown looking disinterested. Bill Condon is loving it. Good performance. Going into the last half hour.

11:30- Queen Latifah and John Travolta here for Best Original Song. Etheridge for her song from An Inconvenient Truth. The Academy must like the 12 string.

11:36- Clips of Little Miss Sunshine with clips of Steve Carrell. Still am unimpressed.

11:37- Will Smith coming out to give out something. Nevermind Michael Mann is doing clips. Sign me up! Clips about the American identity confronting race, religion, gender, TV, violence, the movies themselves, war, heroism, presidency. Decent montage. Mann could have gotten more out of that. Slightly disappointing.

11:42- Here is Kate Winslet to give Best Editing. She's awesome, best actress going. One of the people in our room just said being a film editor would be a fun job. I agree, difficult but worthwhile. The winner is... Thelma Schoonmaker for The Departed.

11:46- In Memorium, always touching.

11:51- Down to the wire, five awards to go. Let's go Marty!

11:54-Ellen updates that we still have several awards to give out. Thanks for the update, shut your mouth, get to the awards. PS Hoffman is coming out for Best Actress. P. Cruz is radient. Judi Dench is MIA (Ellen said it was because she's getting a boob job). Helen Mirren will win. Meryl Streep was great but has won enough, next. Kate Winslet needs to win one of these times.

Helen Mirren wins. Very elegant, very tasteful, very British. She ends by holding up her trophy and saying "I give you the Queen". Odd.

11:59- We just had more dancers behind the sheet, made a gun and somehow shot something. I hope it wasn't a head. Chris Connelly is shown once again walking backstage recapping the show. Is this necessary at 12:00?

12:02- Ellen is vaccumming. I'm not kidding. Get on with it.

12:04-Reese Witherspoon to give Best Actor. Looking for Forrest Whitaker here and it is...Mr. Whitaker. Seems like a great guy, well deserving. Should be a good speech.

12:05- And it was, seems geniunely moved. I really like him and am glad to see he has gotten his due. Was not the basic thank you but a speech from the heart. Congrats Forrest, enjoy it. We look forward to seeing you again soon.

12:09- Coppola, Lucas and Spielberg are here for Best Director. I'm geniunely nervous. Come on Marty. MARTY WINS! Standing ovation. Should be an awesome. The crowd is going nuts. We're watching history. He gets the monkey off the back. Marty looks and sounds like he is going hyper-ventilate. The audience looks legitimately happy for Marty.

12:16- Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton are out for Best Picture. The Departed takes it. Decent show, good awards. Marty's win makes it all worthwhile. I'll be back tomorrow to wrap it all up. Now, I'm going to bed. Hope you enjoyed the 2007 Oscars, good night!

Thoughts on Best Picture

Every once in a while, a film is released to such fanfare and hype that most would consider it illogical to vote for anything but it in the Oscar race. But with both Flags of our Fathers and Dreamgirls, the two odds on favorites for Best Picture runs at the year's start, falling by the wayside, this year's race is wide open with any of the five nominees having a valid shot at taking home the prized gold statue. If last year proved anything, being the odds on favorite means nothing as the powerhouse campaign for Brokeback Mountain ultimately came up short, losing to the vastly inferior but safer, Crash. With the Oscars less than three weeks away, many both inside and outside of the industry are wondering what to make of this year's race.

If one had to guess, I would wager that most would side with The Departed as the favorite to win the big award for a number of reasons. First and foremost, is the prestige behind and in front of the camera. Of the nominated films, no other has the star power in the big positions to fight with Martin Scorsese's Boston crime drama. With arguably three of the most respected stars in the business, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson, all turning in fine performances, the film has definite acting pedigree. Scorsese has long been thought of as the greatest director never to win an Oscar and commands respect in both the New York and Los Angeles film circles, something very few filmmakers can say. The film has an epic scope, something the Academy can never get enough of, and combines adult subject matter with a darkly humorous and thoughtful screenplay by William Monahan. However, what The Departed does not have is the necessary recognitions from the other major awards. It was largely ignored at the Golden Globes, with only Scorsese winning Best Director, and film critics circles around the country haven't awarded it with any great frequency. Besides for the obvious Boston Critics win, it doesn't have the support of the rest of the country as much as a full out favorite should.

Much like The Departed, Little Miss Sunshine doesn't have the support of many critics but has become a dark horse in the race after its recent big wins at the Producers Guild of America Awards as well as at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Prior to these upsets, Little Miss Sunshine looked like a long shot and at this point, still may but it has shown tremendous support from two huge portions of Hollywood. It has been widely adored by audiences (I, personally, found it disappointing) and has been picking up some steam. Like Crash last year, it was released in the summer but due to a phenomenal campaign, has clawed its way into the Oscar race, most likely knocking off Dreamgirls in the process. It has the quirky independent spirit rarely found in a Best Picture nominee, a quality that may end up helping it tremendously. Its underdog mentality, both in its narrative and campaign, has been enduring to many and it could end up pushing the film over the top.

Babel, the third nominated film, is something of a question mark. To many critics, it was manipulative and over the top and as a result, received the worst reviews of Inarritu's three interlocking films, Amorres Perros, 21 Grams and Babel. However, it also has received the most praise from the awards circuit. It was the most nominated film at the Golden Globes and pulled down an impressive 7 nominations, most in big categories, at the Oscars and judging from the Outsider's connections on the West Coast, is the buzz film of the moment, similar to what Crash was in the weeks leading up to its big win. Despite its number of nominations at the Globes, it only won once, albeit in the only category that really matters: Best Drama. If history tells us anything, that win is largely inconsequential, as AMPAS (Academy of Motion Picture, Arts and Sciences) often votes differently than the Hollywood Foreign Press. Yet, the momentum that the win was able to create is certainly making waves. One must also wonder if the Academy voters have grown tired of the interlocking narrative style that Babel uses after awarding Crash, which employs a similar structure, its top award last year. The Academy rarely votes for two similar films in sequential years. Look at 1998's awards with Titanic's big wins. 1999's ceremony was headlined by Shakespeare in Love's surprise win over the heavily favored epic war film Saving Private Ryan. After The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King won big in 2005, the Academy shifted to Crash in 2006, a much smaller film. Will 2007 see the Academy bucking the trend and giving their top award to two films that use similar devices two years in a row? To this writer, its highly questionable.

The fourth film to receive a nomination was The Queen, Stephen Frears' examination of the days following the death of Princess Diana. To this writer, The Queen, despite its critical adoration, is the least likely to take home the big prize on awards night. It's cast and crew was almost entirely British and its English roots show throughout the whole film. To many critics, this means nothing. To an Academy that has never awarded a foreign film its Best Picture, even a film made across the pond seems different. Despite Helen Mirren's amazing performance, which should and will win Best Actress, the film has almost no awards buzz. Its nomination wasn't the least bit surprising and its inevitable loss won't surprise many either. Disappoint sure, but surprise no. The film's strengths lie in its ability to take such a monumental event and still keep the narrative intensely personal and intimate. It never struggles with larger political issues but just the one week following the death of an ex-princess. Its lack of an epic scope could end up hurting its chances and even though Little Miss Sunshine is a small film like The Queen, LMS makes up for its intimacy with oddball dark humor and an indie spirit. The Queen's humor is dry and takes getting used to and feels like a period piece would, it’s just set 10 years ago as opposed to 200.

The fifth and final film, Letters from Iwo Jima, was probably the most surprising. Initially scheduled for release in Feb. of 2007 but rushed ahead once Flags of our Fathers, its companion piece, began to flounder, Iwo Jima was immediately lauded en masse. While the Academy has never awarded a foreign film its Best Picture, Eastwood's complex look at the pivotal battle in the Pacific could be the one to break ground. Eastwood, who has become an Academy favorite over the past 5 years, gives this film immediate recognition in America and I wouldn't be surprised if a few voters aren't swayed by the amazing combined accomplishment that is Flags of our Fathers/Letters from Iwo Jima. In fact, Flags could weigh heavily on voter's minds and could influence a few. Ken Watanabe, who was nominated for The Last Samurai, contributes a phenomenal performance and is becoming a recognizable face for American voters. Eastwood's pedigree can not be under estimated, and while I don’t believe he will win Best Director (which Scorsese will finally take home), he could make a serious run at Best Picture.

Oscar Thoughts

The Oscar Nominations are never without controversy and 2007's were no different. When they were annouced Tuesday morning, many were expecting Dreamgirls to finish with a huge number of nominations, and those predictors were not incorrect. However, not many thought that almost half of their total eight nominations would come from the Best Song category and not a single one from Best Picture, Best Director or Best Adapted Screenplay. In fact, the film was shut out of all the major categories, only coming out with nominations in the supporting actor and actress (Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson respectively) and technical fields. For a film that was expected to be a major contender, this can't be looked at as anything but a massive disappointment. Yet, for this writer, Dreamgirls struggles were not the biggest surprise of the morning. Rather, Volver's inability to receive a nomination for either Best Original Screenplay or even Best Foreign Film struck me as being the shocker of the morning. If you had asked most people on Monday evening to name a guaranteed nomination for Best Foreign Film, I would be willing to wager that many of them would be confident in predicting not only a nomination but win for Volver. Instead, it looks like the clear favorite has to be Guillermo Del Toro's magical Pan's Labyrinth, which has become a critical darling, gracing as many top ten lists as any other film this year.

Other surprises:

-Brad Pitt not being nominated for Best Supporting Actor for Babel. Most critics thought that Pitt was superb, regardless of their overall feelings on the film and his non-nomination struck me as surprising. The Academy nomally loves stars who contribute gutsy, daring performances and I would have thought Pitt would be no different.

-Djimon Honsou's (who very well could have pushed out Pitt) nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Blood Diamond was a pleasant surprise for me. I thought that his performance played perfectly off of DiCaprio's and without it, the film would have worse than it already was. Come to think of it, without either of those performances, the film is no more than a brainless Hollywood actioner masquerading as a message film. This, coming from a self-proclaimed Edward Zwick fan.

-Leonardo DiCaprio and Jack Nicholson getting nothing for their wonderful work in The Departed. Granted, Leo's performance in Blood Diamond was rightfully nominated but I thought both could have gotten Best Supporting Actor noms and no one would have complained. Nicholson is at his over the top best, providing the film with some of its best lines and scenes.

-Letters From Iwo Jima getting the nomination for Best Picture. I thought it would be locked out due to it being in Japanese but one must never forget that the Academy loves Clint.

- Helen Mirren's nomination for The Queen. I mean, was she really that good?

-Just kidding on the last one, making sure you're with me.

-Ryan Gosling picking up a Best Actor nod for Half Nelson. Thought it'd be way too indie for the Academy. A drug abusing teacher? Its a far cry from Poitier in To Sir, With Love (which wasn't nominated either but seems much more likely to have been, maybe this is a moot point).

-Two of the best films of the year, United 93 and Children of Men being almost completely shut out. No Best Picture for either, only two nominations for United 93 and three for Children of Men. Also, World Trade Center receiving no nominations was surprising as well. Maybe Oscar isn't ready for 9/11?

-Phillip Glass' annoying, overbearing score for Notes on a Scandal gets nominated. Is this a joke? No way this should have been recognized. Also, how does the score for The Painted Veil, win the Golden Globe for Best Original Score and then not even get a nod for the Oscars? I dont understand. Not that I'm pulling for Desplat and The Painted Veil, its just confusing.

-Is there a less surprising nomination than the one for Randy Newman for Best Original Song ("Our Town" from Cars)? Everything he touches in a Pixar movie immedietely turns a golden Oscar hue.

-Click being nominated for Best Makeup. Granted I haven't seen Click but the nominees are Pan's Labyrinth, Apocalypto and Click. Nothing for the gore effects in Flags of our Fathers, anything in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest or Marie Antoinette. Click's aging makeup better be spectacular, innovative work or I'll be wildly disappointed.

-The Black Dahlia's nomination for Best Cinematography is very warranted but I was actually surprised it didn't pick up any more smaller noms (Art Direction, Costumes). Say what you will about the narrative and acting but technically, the film is flawless, nearly virtuoso.

-Borat for Best Adapted Screenplay? Wasn't most of it completely improvised? I understand its adapted from the TV show but how do you nominated the scripting as being some of the best of the year. I agree that this film should be recognized but I think it would have been much better suited for a Best Actor nod for Sacha Baron Cohen's spectacularly funny work.

What surprised you?