Countdown to the Oscars (bleh), Part 3

Here are the actor/actress/supporting actor/supporting actress rundowns of the past 10 years. I'll be the first to admit that I'm cheating a bit, as some of these films (usually the ones in the bottom category) are films I never finished watching after getting bored/uninterested/pissed off at the films when they would come on HBO. The bold font denotes a winner that particular year. Again, I realize the list would be more effective had I gone by release year instead of ceremony year, but I caught myself too late on that one.

Ten Best "Best Actor" Nominees

1. Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood (2008)
2. Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson (2007)
3. Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain (2006)
4. Javier Bardem, Before Night Falls (2000)
5. Sean Penn, Milk (2009)
6. Richard Farnsworth, The Straight Story (2000)
7. Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler (2009)
8. Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York (2003)
9. Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises (2008)
10. Russell Crowe, The Insider (2000)

Ten Worst "Best Actor" Nominees

1. Jamie Foxx, Ray (2005)
2. Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Seville (2008)
3. Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2009)
4. Jude Law, Cold Mountain (2004)
5. Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness (2007)
6. Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland (2005)
7. Will Smith, Ali (2002)
8. Russell Crowe, A Beautiful Mind (2002)
9. Peter O'Toole, Venus (2007)
10. Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond (2007)

Ten Best "Best Actress" Nominees

1. Helen Mirren, The Queen (2007)
2. Penélope Cruz, Volver (2007)
3. Charlize Theron, Monster (2004)
4. Marion Cotillard, La Vie en rose (2008)
5. Sissy Spacek, In the Bedroom (2002)
6. Hilary Swank, Boys Don't Cry (2000)
7. Julianne Moore, Far from Heaven (2003)
8. Julie Christie, Away from Her (2008)
9. Diane Lane, Unfaithful (2003)
10. Laura Linney, The Savages (2008)

Ten Worst "Best Actress" Nominees

1. Nicole Kidman, Moulin Rouge! (2002)
2. Renée Zellweger, Chicago (2003)
3. Angelina Jolie, Changeling (2009)
4. Halle Berry, Monster's Ball (2002)
5. Diane Keaton, Something's Gotta Give (2004)
6. Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2008)
7. Felicity Huffman, Transamerica (2006)
8. Juliette Binoche, Chocolat (2001)
9. Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal (2007)
10. Annette Bening, Being Julia (2005)

Ten Best "Best Supporting Actor" Nominees

1. Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men (2008)
2. Clive Owen, Closer (2005)
3. Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children (2007)
4. Jude Law, The Talented Mr. Ripley (2000)
5. Ben Kingsley, Sexy Beast (2001)
6. Willem Dafoe, Shadow of the Vampire (2000)
7. Mark Wahlberg, The Departed (2007)
8. Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2008)
9. Djimon Hounsou, In America (2003)
10. Chris Cooper, Adaptation. (2003)

Ten Worst "Best Supporting Actor" Nominees

1. Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls (2007)
2. Matt Dillon, Crash (2006)
3. John C. Reilly, Chicago (2003)
4. William Hurt, A History of Violence (2006)
5. Joaquin Phoenix, Gladiator (2001)
6. Jeff Bridges, The Contender (2000)
7. Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild (2008)
8. Ethan Hawke, Training Day (2002)
9. Alan Alda, The Aviator (2005)
10. Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain (2006)

Ten Best "Best Supporting Actress" Nominees

1. Amy Adams, Jubebug (2006)
2. Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2009)
3. Catherine Keener, Being John Malkovich (2000)
4. Patricia Clarkson, Pieces of April (2004)
5. Chloë Sevigny, Boys Don't Cry (2000)
6. Samantha Morton, Sweet and Lowdown (2000)
7. Maggie Smith, Gosford Park (2002)
8. Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton (2008)
9. Rinko Kikuchi, Babel (2007)
10. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Chicago (2003)

Ten Worst "Best Supporting Actress" Nominees

1. Kate Hudson, Almost Famous (2001)
2. Natalie Portman, Closer (2005)
3. Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal (2007)
4. Frances McDormand, Almost Famous (2001)
5. Kate Winslet, Iris (2002)
6. Judi Dench, Chocolat (2001)
7. Ruby Dee, American Gangster (2008)
8. Saoirse Ronan, Atonement (2008)
9. Renée Zellweger, Cold Mountain (2004)
10. Frances McDormand, North Country (2006)

Countdown to the Oscars (bleh), Part 1

Now that I've watched all of the big Oscar nominees, from the main eight categories (I'd like to consider Foreign one of the "big categories," but as I've never been able to see all the nominees before the ceremony, I can't consider it such), I've ranked each of the nominees in descending order for your arguing pleasure. I've placed the titles in bold that actually deserved their nomination.

Best Picture

1. Milk
2. Frost/Nixon
3. Slumdog Millionaire
4. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. The Reader

Best Director

1. Gus Van Sant, Milk
2. Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
3. Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
4. David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. Stephen Daldry, The Reader

Best Actor

1. Sean Penn, Milk
2. Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
3. Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
4. Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
5. Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Actress

1. Meryl Streep, Doubt
2. Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
3. Melissa Leo, Frozen River
4. Kate Winslet, The Reader
5. Angelina Jolie, Changeling

Best Supporting Actor

1. Josh Brolin, Milk
2. Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
3. Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road
4. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
5. Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder

Best Supporting Actress

1. Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
2. Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
3. Amy Adams, Doubt
4. Viola Davis, Doubt
5. Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Original Screenplay

1. Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky
2. Martin McDonagh, In Bruges
3. Courtney Hunt, Frozen River
4. Dustin Lance Black, Milk
5. Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter, Jim Reardon, WALL-E

Best Adapted Screenplay

1. Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
2. John Patrick Stanley, Doubt
3. Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
4. Eric Roth, Robin Swicord, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. David Hare, The Reader

Comments: Why is it that the original screenplay category is the only one in which all five nominees are worth praising? The Reader is easily the worst best picture nominee since Crash. I hate that in a few years, people will look back at the nominees for Best Picture and assume 2008 was a shitty year for film, when it was just the opposite. Let's just hope Hollywood's liberal guilt gives Milk just enough push to take the prize over its extremely less deserving nominees.

Sister Acts

Doubt - dir. John Patrick Shanley - USA - 2008 - Miramax

My interest in Doubt strangely parallels my interest in the Catholic church: I only start paying attention when things start to get nasty. There are two crucial elements to the potential failure of the film itself, both of which are side-stepped in the long run. The first relates to my opening sentence. As a boy who spent thirteen years in Catholic schooling, forced to sit through mass at least twice a week, I don't think I listened to a single homily in its entirety without drifting off into either a nap or the thoughts of how I was planning on spending my free period that day. As Doubt opens in such a manner, with Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) addressing the congregation in the form of a homily, discussing the important themes of the film (doubt, of course), I trailed off early like one of the little boys Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) slaps in their pew. As I said earlier, only when the Doubt begins to get nasty as Sister Aloysius begins to suspect Father Flynn of molesting the school's only black student did I start to listen to the priest's homilies, likely because instead of discussing important themes of the film, he uses the second opportunity to spit venom at Sister Aloysius and young Sister James (Amy Adams).

The other potentially hazardous element of Doubt is the same argument that arises whenever a famous play is adapted to the screen. The play, written by Shanley, has won multiple awards over the years, but as Doubt is only Shanley's second foray into film directing (his other was, yes, Joe Versus the Volcano), he shows his ineptitude with every instance of a Dutch angle he crudely imposes on the film. With certain exceptions (The Third Man, Fay Grim), the choice to use a Dutch angle in a film always feels like a monumental mistake, a lame attempt at creating tension that instead draws attention to its own apparatus and takes the viewer (at least me) away from the film. The fact that Shanley insists on using this technique several times in the film suggests to me that he isn't gifted enough to bring his own (phenomenal) play to the screen.

So then, what exactly is the purpose of bringing a play to the big screen? Is it merely to provide a wider audience, who are more apt to watch a film than go to the theatre (and really, who goes to the theatre any more, even in New York?)? Is it simply to attract the biggest talent you can? I would imagine Streep, Hoffman and Adams are all too busy to spend time on a play. If these are your reasons, Doubt is incredibly successful. It's brilliantly acted by its entire cast (Viola Davis as well, though she's only in one scene), and it's already grossed over $25 million at the domestic box office. However, I still think I'd rather see a play transformed into a cinematic experience than merely translated for the silver screen.

Where's Princess Coo-Coo When You Need Her?

Enchanted - dir. Kevin Lima - 2007 - USA

It seemed a bit too easy to give Disney accolades for having the ability to make fun of themselves with Enchanted. As we all know, outside of Pixar, Disney has been throwing its audience garbage for years, and it seemed about time for a little inspiration. With Enchanted, they presented us with something with a faint suggestion of idea: an animated fairy tale princess gets banished to "real life." However, as should have been expected, Enchanted is too proud of its own clever proposition to really work, outside of Amy Adams' inspired performance as Giselle, the hopeless romantic princess in search of her prince. The first issue that should be taken up with Enchanted is that it's too shallow to really work as a satire or even an advanced spoof. Giselle isn't so much another Disney princess as she is an emalgomation of princesses we've already met. She's Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and a bunch of other bitches all in one, and if it weren't for Adams, she'd probably be tedious to watch. She's got an entourage of cute animals at her side, most notably a smart-ass chipmunk who follows the prince (James Marsden) into the real world to save her. Had Disney actually been sophisticated with the production, they would have made fun of their own cheap marketing in throwing in this inexcusably cutesy "animal friend," the Jar-Jar Binks, Elmo bullshit we all know too well. When all of Enchanted's shallow ambition wears off, you come to a horrible realization that there's about an hour left of the film, all of which surrounds Giselle's relationship with a "wooden" single dad (Patrick Dempsey, though they could have cast anyone). All this adds up to a big disappointment and I haven't even gotten to the horrendousness that is Susan Sarandon. We all enjoy a good "give your Oscar back, Cuba Gooding Jr." joke, but why not apply that to Ms. Sarandon, who's made a post-Oscar career out of playing useless mothers in lousy films (Mr. Woodcock and In the Valley of Elah were her most recent duds)? Susan, go polish the Oscar and bitch about George W. Bush with your husband so I don't have to see you any more. Just thank God for Amy Adams.

A Baby Named Junebug

Junebug - dir. Phil Morrison - 2005 - USA

Furthering on my previous post about Amy Adams and Psycho Beach Party, I actually got around to watching Junebug shortly after posting. Though I'm going to try it myself, I think Joshua Tanzer's opening comments in his review on offoffoff.com truly sum up the joy of Junebug. While I certainly don't get paid for doing so, I do tend to watch a lot of films. And though I've probably passed up the handful of Meg Ryan and/or Vin Diesel flicks he's paid to write about, I've seen enough of the same tripe to know appreciate when someone does it well. So what is it that we look for when we constantly surround ourselves with cinema? For me, I'm looking for an unquestionable masterpiece (Fanny & Alexander) or a truly shameless howler (Showgirls). And, yes, unfortunately, most films fall somewhere in between... and it sure is a vast terrain. Junebug dances on top of very familiar territory (a city man and his new, hauty wife return to his humble hometown), but like Thumbsucker (another of the notable and sure-to-be-forgotten "indies" of 2005), it does so much well within its own familiarity that it's rather hard not to admire.


I can hardly say I've grown a taste for the usual Sundance fare, but it doesn't hold me back from admiring a film like Junebug. In my Thumbsucker review, I commented about the horrors of American independent cinema, as new directors find their own deity with a recognizable signature and revamp.. and revamp.. and revamp his or her style well after rigor mortis. Junebug stands as another nice example of a stepping away from the Wes Anderson impersonations that so dominated the film festival/arthouse circuit in the past years. Junebug is earnest.. and it's fucking sweet. But what works best in the film is that the director never puts himself or his protagonist Madeleine (Embeth Davidtz), a primmed, cultured, worldly woman, above its subjects. In the end, we're upset to find that Junebug is, in fact, a "message movie," a particular style of filmmaking (er, storytelling) Michelangelo Antonioni bashes in one of the essays of the Criterion disc for L'Eclisse and one I especially abhor. While there's a message to be discerned, there isn't a character or group of people who are in fact "had." Never is Junebug a film about a cultured woman's disgust over a group of lesser educated Southern folk, nor is it a film where the cultured woman learns that her intellectual ways prohibit her from true human contact. Instead, Junebug is a film about quiet discovery instead of rash patronization. Two particular elements stand out, among others. In one scene, Madeleine's devilishly handsome husband George (Alessandro Nivola) gets in front of a congregation to sing a religious hymn. Instead of an awkward fuck-up on George's part or a religion-is-the-seed-of-all-evil message, it exists as a moment of discovery for Madeleine about George. Director Morrison uses a subtle prop, a body pillow, to visually express an underlying feeling of lonliness in the charcter of Ashley (wonderfully played by Amy Adams, who's truly the standout in a uniformly nice cast).

If Adams wins the Academy Award, Junebug will join the ranks of quickly forgotten films like Iris, Girl, Interrupted, Pollock, or Affliction whose only claim to fame is a supporting actor Oscar. Junebug is better than the films above, but it will stay in my memory as one of those exceptions to rule that all American "indies" blow.

Who You Gotta Fuck to Get a Hotdog Around Here?

Rant of the Day: Psycho Beach Party - dir. Robert Lee King - 2000 - USA

No one knew who Amy Adams (above, center) was when she got an Oscar nomination for Junebug. Well, no one except for fans of the beach movie/slasher flick, Psycho Beach Party (okay, that's probably not true, but that's how I remembered her). Self-conscious camp rarely works, especially when it's a pretty direct parody. The Scream films didn't work, because their self-awareness elevated them above their subject matter so much that it felt more clumsy than ironic when the films followed the same fate as those they put themselves so above. Psycho Beach Party, instead, is rather a joyous homage to teens-in-peril drive-in flicks and Frankie and Annette beach romps. Its tongue-in-cheek-ness pushes to the point of choking, but it isn't without its pleasures: the opening credits, the terrible blue-screen surf sequences, Adams' bitchy Marvel Ann's dance-off at the luau, and an hilarious performance from Six Feet Under's Lauren Ambrose as Florence "Chicklet" Forrest with a split personality disorder that turns her from dorky teenybopper to seductive dominatrix Ann Bowman (no relation).