Reactions to the Oscar Nominations

Well the Oscar nominees were announced today and there were definitely some surprises. I’m disappointed that The Dark Knight was not nominated for Best Picture and Nolan for Best Director. The surprise Best Picture nominee has got to be The Reader. I liked the Reader better Than Milk so I’m glad to see it on the list but I predict the winner in this race will be Slumdog Millionaire. I have not seen all five nominees yet, in fact to save a little time down the road I have not Seen 12 of the nominated feature English language fiction films. Most in need of viewing among that 12 are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Frost/Nixon. So While I’ll comment on who should win what should have been nominated and what shouldn’t I must admit there are some areas in which I’m not fully informed.

In the “that’s surprising category” Kate Winslet’s nomination for Best Actress instead of Best Supporting Actress for The Reader. It seemed likely that Winslet would be nominated for Best Supporting Actress for The Reader and Best Actress for Revolutionary Road. I agree with the Reader’s Lead roll status as she is certainly the main female role in the film, and while she does disappear for long portions so have many other past nominees and winners. Just look at Juliette Binoche’s win for Best Actress in the English Patient, where half the movie is a flashback that doesn’t even involve her. Having seen both Revolutionary Road and The Reader I think the Reader is the better performance as well. Will she win? I hope so, I think her biggest competition will be Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. I’ve seen Doubt and Winslet deserves it over Streep, but I have not seen Rachel Getting Married yet so I cannot say for sure who is deserving between those two, though since when does deserving really come into it.

In the Best Actor Race I think Mickey Rourke has a very strong chance and my guess for his strongest competition is Sean Penn. Heath Ledger has a lock on Best Supporting Actor, as does WALL-E for Best Animated film. The race that seems most up in the air to me is Best Supporting Actress, I’d say that conventional wisdom says the two Doubt nominees will rule each other out, but that thinking has backfired before, I’d say given that small handicap they all still have an excellent chance. Best Director I think will go to Danny Boyle.

Other disappointments would be the lack of any nominations at all for Synecdoche, New York. I thought it would at least get a Original Screenplay nomination or Art Direction. Also in the bad form department is the lack of nominations For the Swedish film Let the Right One In. It’s lack of Foreign Language film nomination is due to it not being the film submitted by Sweden which raises the question maybe the Academy should make these nominations rather than the countries of origin. This is a film that was probably dismissed by it’s country as a genre film not worthy of an Oscar when in reality it is a s deserving of an Oscar as the other overlooked genre film of the year The Dark Knight. Which points out the obvious fact that given the opportunity the Academy probably would have made the same mistake.

Monday was Screening day

Yesterday I saw 4 films at three different theaters, I had a comp day at work so it seemed like the thing to do with it.

First up was Revolutionary Road a quiet tragedy set in the suburbia of the past. Two very solid performances from DeCaprio and Winslet two actors I generally like a lot...Ok I maybe in love with Kate Winslet but based on her Golden Globe win for this performance I'm going to trust my judgement. The film as whole is solid but leaves the viewer at a distance, with both characters so cruel at times to each other you find yourselves frequently without anyone to root for. Your natural tendency is to root for two people to get together but that often doesn't feel like what they want. That said we are not left completely out in the cold there are certainly things we can relate to in the film, unfortunately from an entertainment angle they are the things we all try and cover up and forget about. to summarize, it made me think but only occasionally feel, it looked great and was solidly acted, it very good, but not great. B+

The Wrestler was next and this like all of thing films I saw yesterday is a showcase for performances. Mickey Rourke was one of the first actors I followed and admired in the mid 80's he had a string of films that fascinated me. Diner, The Pope Of Greenwich Village, Year of the Dragon, Angel Heart, and Johnny Handsome. Year of the Dragon was one of my favorite films. Will since those days when he was full of promise he has fallen and fallen hard, his best post 1990 performance was as Marv in Sin City, that worked because you could hide the once attractive fact that now resembles a kindergartners clay art project under a ton of make up. The Wrestler works for Rourke because his appearance matches the characters, and given his own career it's the perfect roll for him. It allows the talent he has to show through because you see him as the character,you are not constantly looking at him wondering WTF happened to this guy he was beautiful, in a tough guy way. So I was rooting for Rourke, and I can't say I was disappointed in his performance. I do wonder how many other roles there are out there for him and his new look though. I hope for a comeback but I wonder how realistic that is. The film as a whole is a slight disappointment only in that it is exactly what you expect it to be it never really rises above it's simple premise or quite realizes the promise of the trailer. B

Doubt was the third film, this has great performances again particularly Viola Davis and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Meryl Streep does a lot to redeem the horridness of Mama Mia, but to be honest While I wouldn't call it flawed I did think she erred slightly towards a showing performance here, I saw her acting. Finely filmed and acted the only slightly unfullfilling thing here is that you don't get resolution, you are left with Doubt, intentionally but somehow that's still a little bit of a bummer. B+

Last was the best The Reader, again featuring Kate Winslet, in the best of the two performances of the day. The film was rounded out by great performances by Ralph Fiennes and David Kross playing her costar at different ages. This was the one film that I not only admired but also moved me. A-

Love them Swede's

I saw Let the Right One In last week, this is a Swedish film and one of the best films of 2008. It reminded me of another Swedish film of this Century Show Me Love. On the surface the two films would seem to have very little to do with one another. If you had to label each film with a type or label, Let the Right One in Would be labeled with Vampire Film, and Show Me Love as Lesbian Film. Neither of those descriptive words comes anywhere near describing these films. These films are about loneliness and connection. Both films feature main characters who are adolescents and outsiders, who are the victims of teasing or bullying. There must be something in the Swedish mindset that allows them to capture these feelings of isolation and aloneness better than anyone else.

Let the Right One In is a deliberate film full of observation and beauty, that features as a main character a vampire, but this is not a horror film, really it’s film about finding friendship and love. It’s intriguing for the way it presents what it might be like if there really were vampires, and the twists it adds to that mythology and for how truly it observes the myths. But that is too limiting a description because it’s so much more than that. That is the description that would turn off so many viewers who would truly admire the film if they saw it. What it is really about is a young boy who is an outsider, who is bullied and has no friends who finds a friend and more someone to love. They are both outsiders as she is a vampire, but you could almost say she is a vampire in the way a charagter in another film might be a person with cancer. She is not a villian, she is a different type of animal, but like the boy she needs someone as well.

Show Me Love is a film that all parents of Teenagers should see. There is a scene where one of the main characters extracts razor blades from a razor. Many films will have scenes like this, but only in this film do you really feel you understand why. Not that you want her to do it, but because of the complete truth with which the film has presented her life up until that point you feel like you understand why she feels that way. This scene is only ¼ of the way through the film. What is invaluable about this though is the insight we can gain the understanding that can help us observe our own children and their world. We forget as years pass how it feels to be young and this film captures it in spades. It also reminds us of the understanding we need to have for where they find love.

Films Viewed in 2009

Bedtime Stories
The Kite Runner
Out of Bounds
Mama Mia
a Few Good Men
The Gingerbread Man
Erin Brockovich
Philadelphia
Intolerable Cruelty
The Firm
Slumdog Millionaire
Raging Bull
Forrest Gump
Burn After Reading
The Times of Harvey Milk
Cast Away
Ghost Town
Splash
Revolutionary Road
The Wrestler
Doubt
The Reader
C.R.A.Z.Y.
An American Crime
Hamlet 2
The Legend of Hell House
The History Boys
Pineapple Express
Brief Encounter
St. Elmo's Fire
Brideshead Revisited
Clerks 2
Repo The Genetic Opera
Shattered Glass
Less Than Zero
The King of Comedy
The Neverending Story
Heavenly Creatures
The Duchess
After Hours
Frost/Nixon
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Bottle Shock
Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist
Man On Wire
The Visitor
The Hustler
Rocknrollar
W.
Frozen river
Signs
Son Of Rambow
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Show Me Love
Australia
Coraline 3D
Bolt
Changeling
How To Lose Friends and Alienate People
The Color of money
Rachel Getting Married
The Jerk
Cannery Row
Body of Lies
Wanted
Scream
Scream 2
Scream 3
The Omen
Halloween
What Just Happened?
Halloween 2
Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired
Absence of Malice
Halloween 3 Season of the Witch
American splendor
Friday the 13th
Scary movie
Juno
Halloween 4 The Return of Michael Myers
Halloween 5 The Revenge of michael Myers
Halloween 6 The Curse of Michael Myers
Friday the 13th part 2
Watchmen
Hearts in Atlantis
Clerks
H2O
Meet Bill
New York Stories
Goodfellas
Mallrats
Friday the 13th part 3
Witchboard
Chasing Amy

Catching up on the years screenings.

OK sorry, updates have been slow. Will try and start the new year right. Before we can move on though, I'm updating what I've seen since the last post. The total was 308 films in 2008.

Year of the Dragon
Zack and Miri Make a Porno
Pete's Dragon
Little Woman
The Desperate Hours
Hellboy II
The Phantom of the Opera
Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman
City of Lost Children
New York, New York
About a Boy
Leatherheads
Teen Wolf
Stalker
Step Brothers
Meet the Parents
Meet the Fockers
Your Friends and Neighbors
Woodstock
1969
Valkyrie
Synedoche, New York
Milk
A Christmas Carol
Love Actually
Elf
The Last Waltz
Beautiful Girls
The Polar Express
A Christmas Story
It's a Wonderful Life
Dr. Syn: The Scarecrow of Romny Marsh
Role Models
Let the Right One In
The Castle of Cagliostro
Snow Angels

screening update

Sorry it's been nothing but screening updates lately but since nobody but my Mother-in-law reads the blog I'm sure there's not really that much of an uproar about it. Hi Kathy!!

Viewed since the last entry

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
Casino Royale
Spellbound
Vampyres
The Disney Davey Crocket Films
Candleshoe
Taxi Driver
Get Smart
Sin City
Quantum of Solace
Mister Foe
Wes Craven's New Nightmare (Ties with the first for the best )
Gonzo: Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson

What I've watched since the last update.

Who’s That Knocking on My door?
Alien
Aliens
Alien 3
Alien Resurrection
Guilty By Suspicion
Ghost Town
The Satanic Rites of Dracula
The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires
The Curse of Frankenstein
The Flesh & Blood Show
The House of Whipcord
Die Screaming Marianne
IT (1966)
Boxcar Bertha
Sometimes They Come Back
Gremlins
Dracula (1931)
Strip Nude For Your Killer
The Revenge of Frankenstein
Salem’s Lot (2004)
The Shining (1997)
The shining (1980)
Nosferatu
Shadow of the Vampire
Frightmare
Mean Streets
La Dolce Vita
A Nightmare on Elm Street
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge
Quarantine
Night Of The Living Dead
Fright Night
Scream of Fear
City of Ember
Needful Things
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
The Evil of Frankenstein
Frankenstein Created Woman
Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed
The Horror Of Frankenstein
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
Sold Out: a Threevening With Kevin Smith
Who Saw Her Dies
Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: Dream Child