Worst Oscar Noms Ever

After two great years with multiple potential winners, I knew it had to come to an end.

Here are the Best Picture 5:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

You can see the full list here (don't feel like copy/pasting).

I'm glad The Dark Knight did not get nominated, but this is a horrible list. The only film that deserves to be on there is Slumdog Millionaire. The academy's taste is bland for the ordinary, bandwagon choices. I was prepared for all of these, though, except for The Reader, which, while decent, is complete trash compared to the dozen other great movies from this year that are much more deserving.

Revolutionary Road got shut out, The Wrestler got minimal nods, and I am very displeased. This will go down as 'one of those years,' in which the AMPAS messed up. They didn't even nominate Synecdoche, New York for Original Screenplay.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was a strong film visually, but its storytelling was overall weak. I'm glad David Fincher got a long overdue Best Director nomination, but Ben Button getting 13 nominations total? Sad.

Just when people get hope that the Academy may think differently -- delusions that maybe a 'comic book movie' or an 'animated movie' may break Best Picture, we're reminded that they are, more often than not, old and boring. They did throw the movie-going public a surprise, but what was it? Nominating a film about the Holocaust. Way to go back to a stereotype.

With all this said, I am 100% hoping Slumdog Millionaire wins every category it is in, because not only is it one of the top three films of the year, it is easily the best out of any of the films nominated.

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If I Could Pick the Oscar Nominees....

I hate predicting Oscar nominees. That means I have to get five things right in each category. What a joke. And I hate when people list their five, and then have an 'alternate' and a 'potential upset' and a 'dark horse.' What the hell is that? Picking eight choices? Such a cop out.

Now, note, I still have a couple movies to see from this year. I have, however, seen most of the notable films, so this is a close-to-complete list. Note: These will all be in order of preference.

Also, note, that these are highly chimerical and unlikely at best.

Best Picture
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL-E
Revolutionary Road
The Wrestler
In Bruges

Best Director
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Sam Mendes, Revolutionary Road
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Andrew Stanton, WALL-E
Darren Aronofsky, The Wrestler

Best Actor
Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Sean Penn, Milk
Colin Farrell, In Bruges
Clint Eastwood, Gran Torino

Best Actress
Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road
I have not seen enough great actress performances, so Kate Winslet wins by default

Supporting Actor
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Dev Patel, Slumdog Millionaire
Brad Pitt, Burn After Reading
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt (bandwagon pick)

Supporting Actress
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
Kate Winslet, The Reader
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristin Barcelona
Frieda Pinto, Slumdog Millionaire
Cate Blanchett, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Original Screenplay
Andrew Stanton, WALL-E
Martin McDonagh, In Bruges
Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, New York
Robert D. Siegal, The Wrestler
Woody Allen, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Adapted Screenplay
Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
Justin Haythe, Revolutionary Road
Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum, Matt Holloway, Iron Man
...anything besides The Dark Knight

Best Editing
Slumdog Millionaire
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
WALL-E
Revolutionary Road
Frost/Nixon

Best Cinematography
Anthony Dod Mantle, Slumdog Millionaire
Claudio Miranda, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Roger Deakins, Revolutionary Road
Harry Savides, Milk
Wally Pfister, The Dark Knight

Not gonna bother with the rest, other than WALL-E for animated feature, obviously.

We'll see tomorrow!

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Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Benjamin Button is in the unique position that he was born an old man and ages backwards. This is an interesting concept, done especially well in F. Scott Fitzgerald's original short story, but the film embellishes so many details that we linger too long on an easy to grasp concept and not long enough on what makes Benjamin Button a human being.

The original text was very different from the film. The only real similarity is Benjamin Button (played by Brad Pitt) and his condition. In the story, he is raised by his father, and there is a moral, physical, and philosophical problem when the child looks older than his father, and then they look like brothers, and then finally they swap back to how they should look. The film, instead, has Benjamin's mother die in childbirth and the father abandons him on a doorstep. This is a step backwards, going from an original idea into a comfortable stereotype that people will seem to 'bond' with.

The film is also told in flashbacks as Elizabeth, in a hospital in New Orleans just before Katrina, is visited by her daughter. The daughter reads Daisy the journal that Benjamin left her while he was still old (or, young) enough to write. What a tried and boring premise, honestly. The story would have been significantly better if it was just told straight with voice-over from Benjamin. The narration doesn't need to be justified. Like Nike: Just do it.

Part of me wishes I had not read the original text, because having done so, it is very easy to find flaws in the film. Fitzgerald knew that the aging backwards concept could not carry a whole novel, just as it cannot carry a 2.5 hour film. Fitzgerald made his work short, whereas director David Fincher (whom I usually enjoy immensely) and screenwriter Eric Roth (Munich, Forrest Gump) didn't pick up on that thought.

There are many good moments in the film, which I guess corresponds to the film's tagline: "Life isn't measured in minutes, but in moments." The film doesn't take off until Benjamin meets Daisy, who is mentally the same age as Benjamin, but aging naturally. She senses a connection to him, and despite his appearance, she knows that they are alike.

The heart of the story is muddled at best, with some focus being paid to Daisy as she gets older (and turns into the lovely Cate Blanchett) and Benjamin gets younger. Benjamin realizes what it is like to do solid work (he was not a lively energetic kid, remember, but a crippled old adult for his younger years). Daisy goes to become a professional dancer. As much time as we spend with the characters in the film, their actions never make sense. With any character, what they do does not have to be something we, the audience, would do, but we should never doubt that the character is capable of something. Why do Benjamin and Daisy continue to elude each other? Even if they can't figure it out, we should be able to.

In summary, the film feels flat. Fincher and Roth attempt to make a grandiose film about one man's entire life, but they only ponder on the surface level issues of Benjamin's case. The elements were in the original text, and why they didn't carry them over, I have no idea.

Rating: 4.5/7

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A Thing About Actors

I was browsing the IMDb page for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and the top user comment begins like this:

When I first heard that Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett's new film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was destined to join the "sweepers" at the 2009 Oscars....

People are clueless. A film does not belong to actors. Actors are a part of the process of making a film, but if a film belongs to anyone, it would either be the Director, the Producers, or the Writer.

I understand that actors make the money. When was the last time a Will Smith movie didn't make 9 figures? Writers are behind the scenes to most of the public because most of the public doesn't care who writes the movie. Because of this, writers are replaced on whims and treated poorly in Hollywood. Which is a shame, because they, in a sense, own the movie. They conceive it and nurture it from the beginning, figure the whole mess out, make it coherent and interesting, and then sell it. Then, the director makes it look good and the actors give the material a little interpretation and the editors fix pacing issues... etc. But again, most people don't think of this.

I am reminded of two lines from two great film.

The first is from All About Eve. Tension arises in the film and Margo Channing (a top theater actress) argues with Lloyd Richards (a top theater writer). The basic argument is that Margo gives the boring play life, but Lloyd says what she does to it ruins it (at this point Eve is surfacing as a great actress). Lloyd says, "There comes a time that a piano realizes that it has not written a concerto." Ah, yes. Very true. The actors have not written their material--they are just reading someone's work. They are tools. As Hitchcock said, they should be treated like cattle.

The second, and slightly more humorous, is from Shakespeare in Love. Geoffrey Rush's character is asked who William Shakespeare is, and Geoff says something like, "Nobody, he's the writer." Hence, what I said earlier.

/end rant

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