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Oscar Picks

It’s that time of year again. That special time of year when most people open up the Entertainment section of your local paper and check out the list of Oscar nominees and say, “I haven’t even HEARD of half of these movies, let alone SEEN them.” Yep, it’s true. Sometime in the mid-to-late 90’s, right around the time that Shakespeare In Love amazingly (and ludicrously) beat out Saving Private Ryan for the Best Picture Oscar®, the Academy Awards turned into a showcase of art house/indie/low-budget fare. Look at some of the films that have won Best Picture ever since the mega-blockbuster Titanic took home the crown in 1996; Shakespeare In Love, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago, Million Dollar Baby, Crash. And now it seems like a film that gets a huge wide release can’ even get nominated. This year’s nominated films include Atonement, Juno, Michael Clayton, There Will Be Blood, and No Country for Old Men. Only ONE of these films made $100 million at the box office (amazingly, Juno). None of them even finished higher than 2nd place for weekend gross when they opened up at the box office (Juno finished 2nd in its opening weekend).

That being said, I don’t feel that smaller films being up for the Award is a bad thing. If anything, it has to do with how Hollywood operates this day in age. It’s rare for a super-budget film to be a crowd-pleasing blockbuster and also a very well-made film, such as the case with Titanic. Granted, I didn’t very much like the movie, but I understood why it won. I had much bigger issues when Gladiator (a summer action hit, albeit a pretty good one) beat out the likes of Traffic and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Now that my preamble is over, onto my Oscar picks. I provide the typical “will win”, “should win”, “dark horse”, and “who got screwed out of a nomination”. Pretty standard. If you’ve got an idea of how to spice up Oscar predictions, I’m all ears.


BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

-CATE BLANCHETT, I’m Not There
-RUBY DEE, American Gangster
-SAOIRSE RONAN, Atonement
-AMY RYAN, Gone Baby Gone
-TILDA SWINTON, Michael Clayton

Will Win: BLANCHETT
Should Win: RYAN
Dark Horse: DEE
Got Screwed: JULIA ROBERTS, Charlie Wilson’s War

This one comes down to the well-respected veteran (Ryan) against the matriarchal sentimental favorite (Dee) against the most interesting casting choice of the year (Blanchett). Ryan probably turned in the best dramatic performance as the grief-stricken mother in Gone Baby Gone, but Blanchett will definitely get votes for morphing into an incredibly credible Bob Dylan.

BEST 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

Will Win: CHRISTIE
Should Win: PAGE
Dark Horse: COTILLARD
Got Screwed: ANGELINA JOLIE, A Mighty Heart

Opinions on this race range between “very wide open” and “extremely wide open” depending on what you read. My guess is that Christie will win it because her performance is evidently astonishing as an Alzheimer’s patient (I haven’t seen the film). I think Page could win, but voters stuck between her and other nominees may vote for the latter, figuring that Page will probably be up for a few more of these awards before all is said and done. And the more I think about it, the more I think Blanchett may steal this one because she pulled off the rare feat of being in an absolutely dreadful movie and STILL being nominated.


BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

-CASEY AFFLECK, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
-JAVIER BARDEM, No Country for Old Men
-PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN, Charlie Wilson's War
-HAL HOLBROOK, Into the Wild
-TOM WILKINSON, Michael Clayton

Will Win: BARDEM
Should Win: BARDEM
Dark Horse: HOLBROOK
Got Screwed: ROBERT DOWNEY JR., Zodiac

Don’t see any way that Bardem loses here. He has virtually swept every major and non-major award in this category leading up to the Oscars. His work as the unstoppable Anton Chigurh in NCFOM is so good it’s frightening. Chigurh will never be as iconic as Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lechter, but he should be. The only possible upset possibility is Holbrook, who has momentum and a bit of sentimentality on his side. The veteran has been around a long time without ever being nominated. Downey’s performance as a newspaper reporter driven to his own self-destruction by the case of the Zodiac killer was a marvel, and certainly deserved a nod from the Academy.


BEST ACTOR

-GEORGE CLOONEY, Michael Clayton
-DANIEL DAY-LEWIS, There Will Be Blood
-JOHNNY DEPP, Sweeney Todd
-TOMMY LEE JONES, In the Valley of Elah
-VIGGO MORTENSEN, Eastern Promises

Will Win: DAY-LEWIS
Should Win: DAY-LEWIS
Dark Horse: JONES
Got Screwed: CHRISTIAN BALE, Rescue Dawn

All you need to know is that the odds of Daniel Day-Lewis winning this award are currently at 1:3. That means you need to bet $3 on him in order to win $1. In other words, it’s a forgone conclusion. Nothing else worth talking about here, other than the fact that Christian Bale (Rescue Dawn) was robbed of a nomination for the second time in his career (the first being in 1999 for American Psycho). The only possible upset here would be Jones, who will get votes from those who consider his work in No Country for Old Men, as well as those who found Day-Lewis’s performance a bit too ham-fisted.


BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

-PERSEPOLIS
-RATATOUILLE
-SURF’S UP

Will Win: RATATOUILLE
Should Win: RATATOUILLE
Dark Horse: PERSEPOLIS
Got Screwed: THE SIMPSONS MOVIE

Surf’s Up getting the nomination here over The Simpsons Movie is one of the Academy’s glaring fuck-ups this year. Simpsons was pure joy. It represented all that made The Simpsons (arguably) the greatest American sitcom of all time. I’m still pissed about this. Surf’s Up??? Are you freakin kidding me??? Damn the Academy for depriving us all of a Homer Simpson acceptance speech!


BEST 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

Will Win: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Should Win: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Dark Horse: THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
Got Screwed: INTO THE WILD

I really see No Counry for Old Men pulling a Titanic-like sweep at the Oscars. It’s THAT good of a film. And the cinematography by Roger Deakins, a Coen Brothers’ regular, is stellar as always. There isn’t a scene in the entire film that isn’t memorable for one reason or another.


BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

-ATONEMENT
-AWAY FROM HER
-THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY
-NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
-THERE WILL BE BLOOD

Will Win: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Should Win: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Dark Horse: ATONEMENT
Got Screwed: INTO THE WILD

It’s not often that I end up reading a book before it’s turned into a movie. Usually what happens is I see a movie I really like, find out that it’s based on a book, and then read it. More often than not, it ends up that the book was better than the film (Friday Night Lights, Silence of the Lambs, Red Dragon, The Beach, ANY Stephen King book-to screen adaptation), with only a few exceptions (Field of Dreams, Sideways). I read No Country when it was first released in hardcover and loved it. It was frightening, bleak, violent, exciting and depressing all at once. I devoured it in one sitting. The Coen Brothers’ film is an incredibly faithful to Cormac McCarthy’s novel; everything from the settings to the characters to the chase scenes to the somewhat anti-climactic climax. Great work.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

-JUNO
-LARS AND THE REAL GIRL
-MICHAEL CLAYTON
-RATATOUILLE
-THE SAVAGES

Will Win: JUNO
Should Win: JUNO
Dark Horse: RATATOUILLE
Got Screwed: SUPERBAD

Juno turned in a rare feat; a small independent critical darling crowd pleaser that found a mass audience mainly through word of mouth. It was basically 2007’s version of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, only a better film. I can’t see it losing this one. But seriously, the Academy couldn’t throw Judd Apatow a bone here? The guy has basically re-invented what had become a somewhat stale comedy genre and released two very intelligent coming-of-age films this year. They could have at least awarded him with a nomination for either Knocked Up or Superbad.


BEST DIRECTOR

-JULIAN SCHNABEL, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
-JASON REITMAN, Juno
-JOEL AND ETHAN COEN, No Country for Old Men
-PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON, There Will Be Blood
-MICHAEL GILROY, Michael Clayton

Will Win: JOEL AND ETHAN COEN
Should Win: JOEL AND ETHAN COEN
Dark Horse: ANDERSON
Got Screwed: JOE WRIGHT, Atonement

This is the year that the Coens finally get their due. Some people say that they finally grew up with No Country For Old Men. I think that’s blasphemous (Blood Simple, anybody???), but I can understand why they would make a knee-jerk assessment after seeing No Country. “Wait a minute. The same guys who made Raising Arizona made this movie?” But anybody who knows anything about the Coens knows the scope of their genius. This is the same brain trust that created an American classic (Fargo) and the perhaps the greatest modern cult classic (The Big Lebowski). Their recognition by the Academy is long overdue. As for Joe Wright, it’s always tough when your film is nominated for Best Picture but not Best Director. All that does is guarantee it won’t win in either category.


BEST PICTURE

-ATONEMENT
-NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
-JUNO
-THERE WILL BE BLOOD
-MICHAEL CLAYTON

Will Win: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Should Win: NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN
Dark Horse: JUNO
Got Screwed: THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

It’s a two-horse race. No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Two films that are similar in a lot of ways, but also very different. Both are set in the dusty Southwest, but 80 years apart. Both feature characters that are the embodiment of pure evil, but one is a homicidal psychopath (Bardem’s Chigurh) and one is a maniacal sociopath (Day-Lewis’ Plainview). Both films have very bleak and cynical endings, but one conclusion is unexpected and a darkly humorous (Blood) and the other is exceptionally depressing and open-ended (No Country). Where they differ the most, in my opinion, is that NCFOM is a 5-star movie with several terrific performances by all those involved, whereas There Will Be Blood is a 4-star movie with an otherworldly performance by its leading man, Day-Lewis. Taking both films as a whole, No Country for Old Men is more deserving.

Michael Vick, American Hypocrisy and Puppies

“You can judge a society by the way it treats its animals.” - Mahatma Ghandi

"I hated that movie. They killed a dog in it!" - The majority of people, after seeing any movie in which a dog gets killed.


Today, Michael Vick accepted a plea deal in his federal dogfighting case and is likely to see 12-16 months in prison. People all over the country feel vindicated by this. Why? Because they feel that Vick SHOULD go to jail for allegedly participating and funding a dog fighting ring as well as taking part in the killing of a few dogs. The killing of dogs is what strikes a chord with most people. They hear that Vick was "involved" with dog fighting and they say, "That's disgusting! Why would anybody do that?" But they hear that he "executed" dogs by hanging and drowning them and all of a sudden it's, "THROW HIM IN JAIL FOR LIFE! HOW COULD HE KILL A DOG?!" Let's take a step back and look at the big picture here.

First of all, I in no way condone harming animals, especially for sport or financial gain. I am a buddhist, after all, and do not believe in harming living things of any kind. And I was just as horrified as most people when I read the details in the indictment. But unlike most people, my first thought wasn't that Vick should be locked up. My first thought was that Vick needs some counseling and/or psychiatric help.

"How can you say that? The guy KILLED...A...DOG! He needs to be put away!" The only reason everybody is calling for Vick's head is because most people have some sort of emotional attachment to dogs. Many people own dogs themselves. Dogs are cute and smart and great companions and "man's best friend". Who on Earth would harm a dog?! Well it just so happens that a majority of these dog lovers wouldn't hesitate to throw a live lobster into a pot of boiling water to cook it. Nor would they think twice about setting up a mousetrap to break the neck of those mice in their basement. Nor would they bat an eye when throwing a few pounds of raw cattle flesh on the grill. People, in large part, are hypocrites when it comes to animal cruelty. They always want the cute ones to be saved but don't care about the ugly/mean/unsavory ones. We've all heard of "Save the Whales". Have you ever seen a "Save the Raccoons" bumper sticker? I rest my case.

Of course, the double-standard is nothing new to America. As George Carlin once said, this country was FOUNDED on the double-standard ("This country was founded by slave-owners who wanted to be free"). But that doesn't mean we need to perpetuate it. Sometimes we need to just stop and look in the mirror. This is a country where dog fighting is illegal, but any redneck with a 47 IQ can go out into the woods with a shotgun and kill a deer or a bear, cut its head off, and mount it on his wall. I can't be the only one who sees the ridiculousness in this.

This shit happens all the time. One of my favorite instances to point out is mentioned in Michael Moore's book Stupid White Men. In it, he talks about his movie Roger & Me and the one scene in the movie that censors urged him to cut. He refused to do so, and thousands of people who viewed the film wrote in expressing their displeasure with the scene. The segment of the film shows a woman who makes textiles from rabbit fur, killing and skinning a rabbit. (See it here) The outrage is understandable. Nobody wants to watch a rabbit killed and skinned. But Moore points out there's a scene in the same movie in which police shoot a mentally retarded man in the middle of the street. The scene did not garner a single letter from moviegoers. What does that say about us as a society?

It seems to me that there would have been less of an outrage if Vick had gotten drunk and run over somebody with his car. Hell, Leonard Little (another NFL player) did exactly that a few years ago and it was barely a blip on the national radar. But I bet if he had killed a few puppies, there would be a lot of people wanting him thrown in jail.

Again, I'm not saying that Vick did nothing wrong. He did. But the punishment should fit the crime. And those of you calling for the feds to lock Vick up and throw away the key, just step back and think things out for a bit.

August

This happens every year. August 1st rolls around and immediately I think, "Jesus christ. The summer is almost over! How did it go so fast?" When, in reality, there is a whole month left (7 weeks if you want to get technical). That seems like a lot of time. But when you break it down, it's really not.

If you have a typical job, you work Monday through Friday. That eliminates five days and nights of the week right there in which you could go to the beach, go to a bbq, get drunk at the bar, etc. Now, I understand that some people have no problem going out during the week, myself included. That's all fine and good, but try getting a decent amount of your friends who are working and contributing to society to go out on a Tuesday night and get drunk. Not easy.

Now, that leaves 2 days (Saturday, Sunday) and 2.5 nights (Friday, Saturday, sometimes a Thursday) to go all out and do what you want. So between now and Labor Day (the de facto end of summer) there are exactly 11 days and 15 nights to have real uninhibited fun without having to worry about work the next day (or at least not worry about it too much because Fridays are usually an easy day). That may seem like a decent amount....until you consider the fact that there are 34 days and 34 night between now and Labor Day. That's 26 out of 68, or 38% of the summer.

Anyway, my point is that this happens EVERY summer. You kick things off with a long Memorial Day weekend. You're at a bbq or a party with your friends. You're all drinking and having a good time and talking about how great the upcoming summer is going to be. Then time proceeds to fly by at superfast speed. You go to the beach a few times, go out every weekend, go to a few parties, see a lot of people, maybe go away for a week or two. Then we arrive at today, August 1st, and you wonder where all the time went.

What usually comes next is thinking of all the things you wanted to do this summer but didn't get around to yet. People you wanted to see, places you wanted to go, things you wanted to do. You try and plan things for the few upcoming weekends that are left. But by this point, most of them (at least the Saturdays) are booked up. So then you get upset and angry about the summer being too short and you kick your girlfriend's cat in the ribs a few times because you enjoy beating up defenseless animals that are much smaller than you. It's an annual ritual.

I wish I had some sort of solution to this problem, but I don't. You just gotta cope with it because you can't slow time down. Get out there and enjoy yourself. Because the older you get, the less summers you have to take advantage of. That, along with the fact that you generally become less and less impulsive as you age really makes for a dire situation. I remember the first summer after college graduation. It was insane. I went out with friends EVERY SINGLE Tuesday night for Beat the Clock night at Bar A and got absolutely hammered on 50 cent beers. I didn't even care about having to go to work the next morning. And that was my first real job out of college. I was, in the words of Champ Kind, "All about havin fun." It was glorious. The best summer of my life.

But now, I have big things to worry about called responsibilities. The main one being a mortgage. And that pretty much confines my partying to weekends. And there are only a few of them left this summer. I guess I'll just do my best to take advantage of them.

The Wave

I recently purchased a Jeep Wrangler. I did this for a few reasons:

1- It's a fun summer car
2- I've kind of always wanted one
3- My previous car was a piece of crap

I didn't buy a new one because I didn't feel like delving into a monthly car payment. So I picked up a used one to tool around in for a few months. I thought of a lot of different things when I first decided to buy one; how bad it is on gas, how much of a pain it is to take the tops on and off, how totally sweet it looks to drive with the top off, etc. But I did not think about being inducted into a club of sorts.

I'm talking about the Jeep Wave. To be honest, I had never seen "the wave" between Wrangler drivers until about two weeks before I bought my own. I always thought that vehicle-based acknolwedgements were reserved for fat bearded dudes riding Harleys.

But evidently I was wrong. My second day driving it, a kid who couldn't have been older than 19 approached me from the opposite direction driving a Wrangler remarkably similar to my own and lifted his fingers off the steering wheel. Instinctively, I made the same gesture. The guy blew by me and I realized that I had been unwillingly initiated into the world of jeep drivers. I wasn't quite sure how to feel because whenever I see guys on motorcycles do their wave, I think, "That's kinda stupid. He probably doesn't even know that guy." But when you're actually participating in something like that, it's pretty cool. It's a type of comeraderie that doesn't exist among people who drive other vehicles. I mean, you never see two guys driving Hyundai Elantras give each other a respectful wave as they pass by each other.

I didn't realize how big a deal this whole "wave" thing was. But there are entire websites dedicated to it (see: http://www.jeeptalk.org/jeep_wave.shtml) They even give guidelines for how much creedence to give other jeeps based on age, appearance, upgrades, etc. It's freakin nuts. Who would actually put that much thought into something like this? Personally, I don't care enough to read through all the "rules of the Jeep Wave", so I'll just wave at all jeeps I see.

I'm not too discriminatory.

Awesome quote by Oliver Stone

Oliver Stone recently approached Iranian officials about making a biopic about their president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but was rebuffed because even though he was viewed as "opposition" by many in the United States, he is still part of the "Great Satan". To which he replied:

"I've been called a lot of things, but never a Great Satan. I wish the Iranian people well and I only hope their experience with an inept, rigid idealogue president goes better than ours."

Good stuff, Mr. Stone. Good stuff.

Mid-Week Days Off

Is there anything worse than having a day off in the middle of the week? This has happened two years in a row with the 4th of July. Last year it was on a Tuesday and I had to work on Monday because I worked at a bank and it's a federal law that banks can't be closed for more than 3 consecutive days. So that was gay. And now this year, it fell on a Wednesday. So on Tuesday, it felt like the Friday before a 3 day weekend; I came in to work wearing shorts and flip-flops, hung around for a few hours, did about 15 minutes of real actual work, and left at 12:30. It was awesome.

I had a whole big day planned for the 4th. I was gonna go crabbing with some guys in the morning, which was just an excuse to drink beers on a boat at 8:30am, then bring the crabs back to cook them up and have a bbq by the pool all afternoon and then maybe go check out some fireworks. It was gonna be a good 4th.

But what actually happened? I woke up at 5:00am, drove 20 minutes to John's house to find out that there's heavy rain and wind in the forecast, thus cancelling our crabbing trip/booze cruise. So I drive back home, sleep for a few hours, wake up around 10:30 to a dreary and drizzly Independence Day, and proceed to do absolutely nothing all day. The most exciting thing I did was return the empty keg from our housewarming party the previous weekend to the liquor store to get my deposit back. WOO-HOO!

Well, no. I actually did go to the movies with the little lady to see 1408. (Good movie with some geniunely creepy and jumpy moments. Very well-done. Almost worthy of its own blog entry.) So at least I did something. But after the movies, it was back home again. And it was rainy and damp out so we didn't feel like going to check out fireworks. I'm not an uber-patriotic American who gets a hard-on for fireworks on the 4th, but I still kind of felt like I should have at least seen some fireworks, even off in the distance, just to make it seem like the 4th of July. The whole day felt like a dreary Sunday. Why? Because I had to go to work today and Friday. And it's totally pointless because nobody wants to be here. Also, my boss isn't here. So that only adds to the "I Would Rather Be Anywhere But Here" quotient.

Plus, I'm leaving for a seven day vacation starting this Saturday. So all in all, I'd say my level of motivation falls somewhere between "Wanting to get a root canal" and "Desire to get punched in the stomach really hard." This is going to be a pretty brutal day.