Macresarf1 Squeezes in a Leanly edited Concise Set of 80th Oscar Picks.
Feb 24 '08
The Bottom Line By all means, tune in the Oscars. The Ceremony celebrates one of the two really American Art Forms. America needs all the positive attention it can get right now.
To me, there is an elegiac note about the 80th Oscars. In many ways, the Movies are better than ever. Much of the snobbish criticism which was heaped on the Ceremony for its first five or six decades (mostly from the Art World and the Left Wing) has been satisfied over the last ten or fifteen years. While the Academy of Motion Picture Sciences is still capable coming up with an unworthy choice, still sometimes willing to vote greed rather than merit, the days are long gone when the Oscars were a closed club, an almost exclusively American game, often rigged by the Big Hollywood Studios simply for extra profit on a slick "product." The choices today are often independent, politically courageous, generously International in scope, and artistically meritorious. Indeed, now that the Art World is in retreat, and the Left Wing has all but disappeared as a serious influence, it is the Yahoo Right which used to beat the drum for our American Product, which spews jingoistic japes, cheap shots [see "The Razzies"] and ignorant snobbery on the Academy's choices.
Yet, there is a feeling that the day of the movie theater as a place where great audiences might meet and mingle esthetically, politically and socially is near an end. We are retreating into our tribal "home theaters," becoming engrossed with video games instead of coherent stories, and more than ever, rejoicing in good old American ignorance. We do that as we drag ourselves toward the eighth year of the abominable "war on terror," as many factions still attempt to rationalize "Global Climate Change," as the Corporatist grip links with that of Military in the coming struggle for Africa, and with a shudder, as the last Bush Administration half trillion dollar hypo of military contract spending is pumped into our collapsing middle class economy.
There is a feeling in the air that decades of derision have finally sunk in, and when the Academy suggested NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, an Old Testament meditation on the rise of Evil in Texas and America, was one of the most subtle and significant films of the New Century, its many nominations did it little good at the box office. Instead, NORBERT, rightly deserving of its "Razzie," brought in 168 million. The huge number of people, usually the young, who flocked to this lowest common denominator, and ignored the best, was not a good sign.
And so it is with a certain sadness that I just make my picks among many excellent possibilities.
True, this year's choices were not always so balanced as I would have liked them. Sidney Lumet's BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOUR DEAD, the finest serious movie-movie of the year, was ignored entirely, and INTO THE WILD, one of the most truly American and admirable of nature films produced in the last 50 years, received but a couple of token nominations. Still the year's crop of choices was one of the best ever.
Granting that I have not seen all of the major entrants this year, nor many in the minor categories, here without comment are my choices for the 80th Oscars. An asterisk (*) indicates my top choice. A plus (+) is my runner-up.
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And the nominees are ...
Best Picture:
+
-- -- Atonement
-- -- Juno
-- -- Michael Clayton
*
-- -- No Country for Old Men
-- -- There Will Be Blood
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Best Director:
-- -- Paul Thomas Anderson for There Will Be Blood
*
-- -- Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men
-- -- Tony Gilroy for Michael Clayton
-- -- Jason Reitman for Juno
+
-- -- Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
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Best Actor:
-- -- George Clooney in Michael Clayton
*
-- -- Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood
-- -- Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd: Demon Barber of Fleet Street
-- -- Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah
+
-- -- Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises
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Best Actress:
-- --Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth: The Golden Age
*
-- -- Julie Christie in Away from Her
-- -- Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose
+
-- -- Laura Linney in The Savages
-- -- Ellen Page in Juno
-----
Best Supporting Actor:
-- -- Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward
Robert Ford
+
-- -- Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men
-- -- Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson's War
*
-- -- Hal Holbrook in Into the Wild
-- -- Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton
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Best Supporting Actress:
-- -- Cate Blanchett in I'm Not There
*
-- -- Ruby Dee in American Gangster
-- -- Saoirse Ronan in Atonement
+
-- -- Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone
-- -- Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton
-----
Best Original Screenplay:
+
-- -- Juno
-- -- Lars and the Real Girl
-- -- Michael Clayton
-- -- Ratatouille
*
-- -- The Savages
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Best Adapted Screenplay:
+
-- -- Atonement
-- -- Away from Her
-- -- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
*
-- -- No Country for Old Men
-- -- There Will Be Blood
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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
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Original Score:
*
-- -- Atonement
+
-- -- The Kite Runner
-- -- Michael Clayton
-- -- Ratatouille
-- -- 3:10 to Yuma
-----
Best animated feature film:
+
-- -- Persepolis
*
-- -- Ratatouille
-- -- Surf's Up
-----
Art Direction:
-- -- American Gangster
*
-- -- Atonement
+
-- -- Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
-- -- There Will Be Blood
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Costume Design:
-- -- Across the Universe
-- -- Atonement
*
-- -- Elizabeth: The Golden Age
+
-- -- La Vie en Rose
-- -- Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
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Best Documentary:
+
-- -- No End in Sight
-- -- Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
*
-- -- Sicko
-- -- Taxi to the Dark Side
-- -- War/Dance
-----
Best Documentary Short Subject:
-- -- "Freeheld"
*
-- -- "La Corona (The Crown)"
+
-- -- ""Salim Baba"
-- -- "Sari's Mother"
-----
Film Editing:
+
-- -- The Bourne Ultimatum
*
-- -- The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
-- -- Into the Wild”
-- -- No Country for Old Men
-- -- There Will Be Blood
-----
Best Foreign Language Film:
+
-- -- Beaufort
-- -- The Counterfeiters
*
-- -- Katyn
-- -- Mongol
-----
Makeup:
*
-- -- La Vie en Rose
-- -- Norbit
+
-- -- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
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Original song:
+
-- -- "Falling Slowly" from Once
-- -- "Happy Working Song" from Enchanted
*
-- -- "Raise It Up" from August Rush
-- -- "So Close" from Enchanted
-- -- "That's How You Know" from Enchanted
-----
Best Animated Short Film:
-- -- "I Met the Walrus"
*
-- -- "Madame Tutli-Putli"
-- -- "Même les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)"
-- -- "My Love (Moya Lyubov)"
+
-- -- "Peter & the Wolf"
-----
Best live action short film:
-- -- "At Night&"
-- -- "Il Supplente (The Substitute)"
-- -- "Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)"
*
-- -- "Tanghi Argentini"
+
-- -- "The Tonto Woman"
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Sound E:diting:
-- -- The Bourne Ultimatum
*
-- -- No Country for Old Men
-- -- Ratatouille
-- -- There Will Be Blood
+
-- -- Transformers
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Sound Mixing:
-- -- The Bourne Ultimatum
-- -- No Country for Old Men
+
-- -- Ratatouille
*
-- -- 3:10 to Yuma
-- -- Transformers
-----
Visual Effects:
+
-- -- The Golden Compass
-- -- Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
*
-- -- Transformers
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12/1/09: Afghanistan, again: Between the Republican Devils and the Deep Blue Dog Obama.
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