The Oscars

The Good: Three of the Best Picture nominees deserved the nod (There Will Be Blood's disastrous final act notwithstanding), and I could find good things to say about Atonement and Michael Clayton, too, if pressed. It's nice that Viggo Mortensen was recognized for Eastern Promises, and that Keira Knightley wasn't for Atonement. And the presence of the critical fave Persepolis in the Best Animated Film category means there's a chance (okay, not much of one) that the vastly-overrated Ratatouille won't win.

The Bad: Cate Blanchett for Elizabeth: The Golden Age, obviously. Tom Wilkinson for Michael Clayton - another thick slice of ham from a fine actor who's serving too many of them these days. The absence of Josh Brolin from the Best Actor nominees. The absence of Zodiac (good call releasing it in the spring, Warner Brothers) from every category.

The Ugly: The smart money says that There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men will split the highbrow-Western vote, clearing the way for a dark horse to win Best Picture - maybe Atonement but more likely Michael Clayton, which cleaned up with a surprising seven nominations, and which will benefit from Hollywood's love affair with George Clooney, Conscience of the Nation. For an entertaining but ultimately ridiculous potboiler like Clayton to beat the masterful No Country might not be the biggest travesty in recent Oscar history (cough, Crash, cough), but it would be pretty damn annoying even so.

Comments

God, I was annoyed by Juno. And no, not because of abortion. Way too impressed with itself, way too assured of its own cleverness. Although I also think that both of the highbrow westerns are very overrated as well.

Anybody else think that Tommy Lee Jones was better in No Country for Old Men than Javier Bardem?

Posted by Freddie | January 23, 2008 7:19 PM

Just like politics! You analyze films that you've been told are the films to analyze. The media is just an echo chamber. Anyway, the Ron Paul of this season is "Into the Wild", a great film, very fresh, based on a marvelous story with fine music and original performances. Oh well, back to the list we were handed. No wonder the Hollywood Establishment is so cozy with the Washington Establishment, they both know how to frame things to their financial advantage.

Posted by fougasseu | January 23, 2008 9:35 PM

Into the Wild was an embarrassingly amateurish movie. The dialogue was just painful, and some of the scenes were like something out of a Hallmark tv movie (I'm looking at you, old man climbing the hill). The music was uneven at best (society I hope you're not lonely without me, dear god).

Posted by mad6798j | January 24, 2008 12:45 AM

I like THERE WILL BE BLOOD and ATONEMENT more than Ross does, so I'm pretty much in clover about these Best Pic nominations.

But ... to mention the bad things quickly that Mr. Douthat hasn't and I didn't at my site (the foreign-film travesty, the appalling absence of Josh Brolin, the more-appalling presences of NORBIT and THE BOURNE IDENTITY) ...

-- Ruby Dee was fine in her role in AMERICAN GANGSTER, but was there that much to it? (I smell a career Oscar; it's certainly a career nomination. And it's de facto for Ossie Davis too)

-- I wasn't that impressed by Marion Cotillard when Piaf's music wasn't on the soundtrack, which tells me what I was really reacting to in LA VIE EN ROSE. Cotillard was just doing a French version of the imitate-a-celebrity Oscar-beg strategy, and in an overrated film (how do you say "chronology is for wimps" in French?)

-- Why exactly does Jason Reitman deserve a directing nomination? The strengths of JUNO are the script and the actors, and he mostly served by getting out of the way. Which admittedly is a virtue ... though hardly an achievement worth locking out Joe Wright for the Best-Pic-nominated ATONEMENT.

Posted by Victor Morton | January 24, 2008 5:01 AM

Your Knightley comment seems like typical contrarian BS. The part of Atonement that critics (and viewers) all seemed to think didn't work were the war scenes that McAvoy was supposed to carry.

He couldn't. Knightley carried that crappy romance movie the way Leonardo DiCaprio carried that crappy romance movie Titanic. Interestingly, he was foolishly ignored at the time as well.

Meanwhile, some little girl steals Janeane Garofolo's entire delivery, puts on a fat suit and repeats the exact same performance she'd already given last year in Hard Candy and you and everyone else think it's fine that she gets a nod. That movie is only tolerable because of the Dad.

Anybody else think that Tommy Lee Jones was better in No Country for Old Men than Javier Bardem?

Actually, I do agree with Ross about Brolin's performance being the one to watch in the movie. But since it would've been a Best Actor nod, instead of a Supporting Actor, I guess I can live with it.

Posted by keatssycamore | January 24, 2008 5:08 AM

some little girl steals Janeane Garofolo's entire delivery

Hardly. Ellen Page doesn't have Janeane Garofolo's rusty-knife hard edge. At least in JUNO, she is much sweeter, less strident, more ironic and self-deprecating, and less cutting than Garofolo usually was (a role she was very good at doing. I don't intend that as negative criticism of Garofolo, whom I liked for most of the 90s).

Posted by Victor Morton | January 24, 2008 6:04 AM

I still think the biggest travesty in Oscar history was when Shakespeare In Love beat Saving Private Ryan. That's just stupid. They'll be playing Saving Private Ryan on Memorial Day for decades and Shakespeare doesn't even warrant TNT airtime.

Posted by McChappy | January 24, 2008 6:04 AM

Janeane Garofolo's rusty-knife hard edge

I couldn't help but snort as I read this and immediately thought, "How true, after all, I had to get a tetanus after viewing The Truth About Cats and Dogs!"

Posted by keatssycamore | January 24, 2008 6:50 AM

With such a potential for splitting the vote, I predict a brokered convention.

Posted by Other Ezra | January 24, 2008 10:07 AM

Zodiac sucked and was rightly past over - one more reason to avoid your movie reviews.

Multiple Choice Mitt - Because One Answer is Nver Enough!

Posted by Multiple Choice Mitt | January 24, 2008 10:54 AM

When Zodiac came out I immediately crossed it off. I go to movies about crime investigations in the expectation of finding out in the end who did the crimes, which I gather never happens in this case. Somebody tell me why I was wrong.

As for Ruby Dee, I agree completely with Victor Morton. People complained about Dame Judi getting the statute for nine minutes onscreen as Good Queen Bess. Dee can't have had even that much -- the whole movie for her was essentially one short scene. But by God, she knocked that scene dead! I hadn't known she was in the movie and hadn't recognized her till then, at which point picked myself off the floor and said "That must be Ruby Dee!" (My cynical side suspects they wrote the part and the scene specifically to try and get her an Oscar.)

Posted by roac | January 24, 2008 11:54 AM

What was so bad about the ending of There Will Be Blood?

I mean, PTA could have ended it with oil-soaked ducks falling from the sky.

Posted by Rickm | January 24, 2008 12:33 PM

Agree with your assessment of the travesty of Crash's win. This mean you think Brokeback should've won? If so, good for you, because it was a great movie. I agree with those who think Into the Wild deserved more love. Yes, the outlook of the lead character makes me want to go pound hippies, but the movie was still skillfully acted and directed, even written. It was ten times better than Atonement, which I found to be one of the most disappointing films I've seen in years. It just falls apart halfway through and never recovers. Don't care what the haters say, but I loved Juno. Unlike Little Miss Sunshine, I felt it lived up to the hype. Three cheers for Ellen Page! And if Javier Bardem doesn't get an Oscar, cancel next year's show, too.

Posted by NHCt | January 24, 2008 12:56 PM

I still think the biggest travesty in Oscar history was when Shakespeare In Love beat Saving Private Ryan. That's just stupid. They'll be playing Saving Private Ryan on Memorial Day for decades and Shakespeare doesn't even warrant TNT airtime.

Saving Private Ryan is a bad movie. A single virtuosic battle scene can't make for a great movie. It's just about the most ham-handed collection of cliches I can imagine-- the bible-quoting killer, the naive American who dies by trying to help, the grizzled sargeant, the hero dying mere moments from victory.... It's got all the hallmarks of bad Spielberg, maudlin, sentimental, obvious. No thanks.

Posted by Freddie | January 24, 2008 1:10 PM

It's just about the most ham-handed collection of cliches I can imagine

Don't you mean "Into the Wild"? Pure Cliche.

Anyway, the oscars are "unfair." See Arrow's Theorem.

Posted by Geof | January 24, 2008 2:55 PM

I'm afraid you're right regarding the ugly fact that "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will be Blood" are going to split the highbrow-Western vote. But I think you misjudge who will benefit.

"Juno" is going to drink their milkshake.

Posted by Tom | January 24, 2008 4:20 PM