Where I Am Felix To The Academy's Oscar

Tonight is the night when we feeble schlubs get to dip our toes in the lake of glamour that is the Academy Awards, staring in disbelief at the staggering beauty of our betters. I say this without sarcasm, as I am powerless to resist it. The award period is like my Christmas (with the summer season of robots, monsters, superheroes and explosions being my extended birthday). This year, though, has been particularly frustrating, as the likely winners seem more predictable than ever. It's obvious that, by now, Slumdog Millionaire is going to win most awards. That frustrates me enough as I'm on record as hating the damnable thing, but also because it has robbed us of some speculation fun. Last year I might have had a terrible time picking winners, but it was a lot more fun guessing.

Before revealing my picks (can you bear the suspense?), first the results of our poll to find out the most popular longshot Oscar winner from this year's nominations. It was pretty clear who was the favourite.

Kung Fu Panda (Animated Feature Film) - 6 (50%)

Martin McDonagh (Original Screenplay - In Bruges) - 3 (25%)

Richard Jenkins (Actor- The Visitor) - 2 (16%)

Melissa Leo (Actress - Frozen River) - 1 (8%)

Michael Shannon (Supporting Actor - Revolutionary Road) - 0 (0%)

Viola Davis (Supporting Actress - Doubt) - 0 (0%)

Gus Van Sant (Director - Milk) - 0 (0%)

Thomas Newman (Soundtrack - Wall*E) - 0 (0%)

Peter Morgan (Adapted Screenplay - Frost/Nixon) - 0 (0%)

Wally Pfister (Cinematography - The Dark Knight) - 0 (0%)

The Baader Meinhof Complex (Foreign Language Film) - 0 (0%)

Milk (Picture) - 0 (0%)

Iron Man (Visual Effects) - 0 (0%)

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Makeup) - 0 (0%)

The Dark Knight (Sound Editing) - 0 (0%)

Wanted (Sound Mixing) - 0 (0%)

Kung Fu Panda's win in this most insignificant of polls warms my heart. KFP has been damned with faint praise since its release ("It's surprisingly good for a Dreamworks movie!" "It's a lot of fun, but it's not profound like the Pixar film!" etc.), though that didn't stop it sweeping the board at the Annies, recently. Recently I rewatched Wall*E, hoping I would like it more second time around, but sadly no. As usual, I offer the usual caveats. It's beautiful, it's got a lot of incredible ideas and imagery, and the sound design is stunning, but the second half is flat, and Wall*E spends far too much of the movie falling over or having things land on him. In Kung Fu Panda the slapstick has a purpose (Po's clumsiness is the source of his kung fu strengths, as his unpredictability makes him unstoppable), whereas in Wall*E it's more like punctuation at the end of scenes, something I have a real problem with. The analogy I ended up with was that Kung Fu Panda was a Buster Keaton movie (it's all about the story and the spectacle), and Wall*E was a Charlie Chaplin movie (convinced of its own importance, and deeply unfunny). Keaton beats Chaplin any day of the week. Sorry, Pixar.

The votes for Martin McDonagh, Richard Jenkins (who had a really good year with great work in Burn After Reading and Step Brothers as well), and Melissa Leo were cool too, but the latter two are in categories that seem decided already. Martin McDonagh has a better chance, as his category of Best Original Screenplay is kinda weak, but even so, In Bruges was too filthy and odd to win votes from the staid Academy members. Shame. No one else got a single vote. Maybe I chose badly, or maybe readers of this blog haven't seen the movies I picked. No matter. Thanks to everyone who participated.

And now, my picks for this year. Except for a couple of categories, it was a no-brainer. Even if the Weinsteins have been trying to turn people against Slumdog, it's just not going to happen. To be honest, I may have hated Slumdog, but I might hate The Reader more. Not only is it of questionable value as a comment on post-Nazi German guilt (I think these comments and these reviews sum up my feelings far better than I could express), it's also a really stupid and pompous movie, filled with wall-to-wall cliches and laughable dialogue. David Hare and Stephen Daldry should hang their heads in shame. The list of nominees seems even worse now that I've seen that fucking appalling exercise in static worthiness. And so, I think the Oscars will, should, and can't (due to stupidity) go to the following...

Best Picture:

Will Win: Slumdog Millionaire
Should Win: Milk
Should've Been Nominated: The Dark Knight / Rachel Getting Married / The Wrestler

I may have had some reservations about Milk, but it's far and away the best movie of a really poor bunch, and by an order of magnitude in the case of Slumdog and The Reader. The snubs for the three films I have listed truly grate on me. I've said it before, and I'll say it again; this is the worst nominations list I can remember, which is another thing that has robbed me of my enthusiasm.

Best Director:

Will Win: Danny Boyle – Slumdog Millionaire
Should Win: David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Should've Been Nominated: Christopher Nolan - The Dark Knight / Jonathan Demme - Rachel Getting Married

An easy pick, though I chose Fincher as the Should Win as there was so much work done on Benjamin Button that I thought he edged it over Van Sant, who also did excellent work on Milk (though, as I've said before I would have liked a bit more unconventionality in it). None of this matters, though. Boyle will win it for the worst film of his career. Yuk.

Best Actor:

Will Win: Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler
Should Win: Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler
Should've Been Nominated: Robert Downey Jr. - Iron Man

This has to happen. If someone else won it would be the biggest upset of the night. And by upset, I mean, I would turn off the TV and not bother watching to the end. Come on, Mickey!

Best Actress:

Will Win: Kate Winslet – The Reader
Should Win: Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Should've Been Nominated: Kate Winslet - Revolutionary Road / Julianne Moore - Blindness

I love Winslet and think she's one of the great actors of our time (seriously), but for The Reader? Nuh-uh. She's good in it, but that movie deserves no reward. Having her nominated for that and not the far superior (and not despicable) Revolutionary Road is testament to the efficacy of the Weinstein's strong-arming tactics, but that's little consolation to us. I'd love for Anne Hathaway to win instead, just to rob the Weinstein's of their little victory, but that would also rob Winslet, who has deserved Academy recognition for about ten years at least.

Best Supporting Actor:

Will Win: Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Should Win: Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Should've Been Nominated: Aaron Eckhart - The Dark Knight / Bill Irwin - Rachel Getting Married

Another no-brainer. And deservedly so.

Best Supporting Actress:

Will Win: Penélope Cruz – Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Should Win: Marisa Tomei – The Wrestler
Should've Been Nominated: Rosemarie DeWitt - Rachel Getting Married

I would have plumped for someone else in this category, but Tomei isn't winning (even though the Academy might like to legitimise her Vinny award), and Cruz will get it for losing out on a justified award for Volver.

Best Original Screenplay:

Will Win: Milk - Dustin Lance Black
Should Win: In Bruges - Martin McDonagh
Should've Been Nominated: The Wrestler - Robert D. Seigel

See above for my feelings on this. Milk wasn't a bad screenplay, but it was pretty unimaginative, and filled with clunky exposition. Seigel's work on The Wrestler, on the other hand, was feather-light. It would have been nice for a former Onion employee to get a nod.

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Will Win: Slumdog Millionaire - Simon Beaufoy
Should Win: Frost/Nixon - Peter Morgan
Should've Been Nominated: The Dark Knight - Christopher Nolan / Jonathan Nolan / David Goyer

A particularly weak field. Beaufoy's script is shockingly poor, a stream of one-dimensional characters, contrivance, phony uplift, and childish humour. That said, David Hare's adaptation of Bernard Schlink's novel is equally vapid. I would love for them both to lose to Peter Morgan, even if his screenplay was also loaded with some silly Cliff Notes-style exposition to help the viewer along (though the amount of contextual information in that film has to go somewhere if it's going to be less than fifteen hours long).


Best Animated Feature:

Will Win: WALL-E – Andrew Stanton
Should Win: Kung Fu Panda – Mark Osborne and John Stevenson
Should've Been Nominated: Fear(s) of the Dark - Various

I've not even seen Fear(s) of the Dark, but it sounds great, and it would be fun to see Charles Burns getting a nomination (read Black Hole; it's awesome). That would have meant Bolt misses out, which is a shame, as it's a lot of fun, and the nomination is a nice present to Disney Animation, which has had a difficult couple of years.

Best Foreign Language Film:

Will Win: The Class (France) in French - Laurent Cantet
Should Win: Waltz with Bashir (Israel) in Hebrew - Ari Folman
Should've Been Nominated: Gomorrah (Italy) - Matteo Girrone

I suspect The Class will win as much for its quality as for not being the far more controversial Waltz With Bashir. I've not yet seen The Class, and it might be amazing, but I can vouch for the incredible Bashir, a film that moved me to horrible tears. I just can't see something that bleak winning an Oscar. Though it would ruin my spread, I'm hoping for a Bashir win here.

Best Animated Short:

Will Win: This Way Up - Alan Smith and Adam Foulkes

As I've not seen anything in this category, I don't feel right commenting on what should or shouldn't have been nominated, but I will make this prediction, based on my super-scientific method of picking the one I've heard of (this short was profiled in the Times this week). Besides, it looks pretty cool.

Best Art Direction:

Will Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo
Should Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Donald Graham Burt, Victor J. Zolfo
Should've Been Nominated: Hellboy II: The Golden Army - Stephen Scott

The wide-range of time periods for this movie, and the amount of work in replicating them, ensures this win. Either that or The Duchess will win for Removal of Contemporary Items From Stately Homes. Yawn.

Best Cinematography:

Will Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Claudio Miranda
Should Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Claudio Miranda
Should've Been Nominated: The Spiderwick Chronicles - Caleb Deschanel / The Fall - Colin Watkinson

It was ravishing! How can it lose? It won't win anything not in the non-technical categories, so this is a sure thing (he said with obnoxious over-confidence).

Best Costume Design:

Will Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Jacqueline West
Should Win: Milk – Danny Glicker
Should've Been Nominated: The Fall - Eiko Ishioka

As in the previous category, an egregious snub for The Fall. I know the movie wasn't seen by many people, but even just looking at the trailer should be enough of a showreel to get some attention. It was one of the most beautiful movies ever made, and no one noticed. I'd feel sorry for the director, for which this was a work of great personal significance, but I imagine worldly things do not matter to the mighty... TARSEM!

Best Documentary Feature:

Will Win: Trouble the Water
Should Win: Man on Wire
Should've Been Nominated: Standard Operating Procedure

Boy, I was looking forward to watching Trouble The Water on More4 this week, but our Sky+ record function has gone kerflooey, so that's not happening any time soon. I would think that will win over Man On Wire due to the subject matter, no matter how good it is (I hear it's wonderful, but I wouldn't know). Maybe I'm being too cynical. I'll happily eat my words later, if necessary.

Best Documentary Short:

Will Win: The Conscience of Nhem En – Steven Okazaki

As with the animation short, I've not seen any of the nominees in this category, so I won't insult everyone here, and will plump for this nominee as I have heard of it as well.

Best Film Editing:

Will Win: The Dark Knight – Lee Smith
Should Win: The Dark Knight – Lee Smith
Should've Been Nominated: Speed Racer - Roger Barton, Zach Staenberg

There is an awful error in The Dark Knight, during the Batpod sequence, where Batman shoots a glass door, drives through a building, shoots another glass door, and then is back in the building even though it should have driven out. GAH! It drives me crazy every time I watch it. Even so, the editors do an amazing job of cutting a big complex movie down to a manageable size (it should have been a lot longer).

Best Live Action Short:

Will Win: On the Line (Auf der Strecke)

Here is where my foolproof method for selecting the hard-to-find nominees fails. I've not heard anything about any of these movies. ::sigh:: Sorry, short film filmmakers. I'm going for On The Line as it's the top of the list. Oy, that's some crappy motivation.

Best Makeup:

Will Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Greg Cannom
Should Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Greg Cannom

I didn't select a film that should have been nominated, as I think they picked the best three films of the year, though I will say I suspect Tropic Thunder didn't get picked for Robert Downey Jr.'s blackface makeup as the Kodak theatre would explode from the white liberal confusion over it. I think Ben Stiller et al have a good defense when they say that the character of Kirk Lazarus is a lampoon of actorly pretension, and it's a hilarious turn, but I really don't think we're ready to be handing out awards for that kind of divisive and explosive makeup just yet.

Best Original Score:

Will Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Alexandre Desplat
Should Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Alexandre Desplat
Should've Been Nominated: The Dark Knight - Hans Zimmer, James Newton Howard

Doesn't it seem ironic now that The Dark Knight's ineligibility caused so much fuss, and all for nothing? Repeated viewings have shown how complex, unorthodox, and stirring that soundtrack is. The eventual snub is deeply frustrating. And why did I choose Desplat's soundtrack over A.R. Rahman? Because Desplat is super-awesome and I just don't want Slumdog to keep winning things. Please?!

Best Original Song:

Will Win: "Down to Earth" from WALL-E – Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman (music), Peter Gabriel (lyrics)
Should Win: "Down to Earth" from WALL-E – Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman (music), Peter Gabriel (lyrics)
Should've Been Nominated: "The Wrestler" from The Wrestler - Bruce Springsteen

This category is utter bullshit this year. I can understand Slumdog and Wall*E getting a nomination each, but leaving out Springsteen makes absolutely no sense. It's good news for Peter Gabriel, though. Slumdog should, again, win, but I suspect (as does Richard Corliss in his picks) that the Slumdog vote will be split, leaving Gabriel free and clear to win.

Best Sound Editing:

Will Win: WALL-E – Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
Should Win: WALL-E – Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood
Should've Been Nominated: Speed Racer - Dane A. Davis, Mike Chock, Drew Yerys

Big no-brainer. Burtt's work is the main reason Wall*E works at all.

Best Sound Mixing:

Will Win: The Dark Knight – Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo, Ed Novick
Should Win: The Dark Knight – Lora Hirschberg, Gary Rizzo, Ed Novick
Should've Been Nominated: Speed Racer - Felix Andriessens, Christian Wegner

The Dark Knight is the big action film of the year. This is the way this kind of voting goes.

Best Visual Effects:

Will Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, Craig Barron
Should Win: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, Burt Dalton, Craig Barron
Should've Been Nominated: Speed Racer - John Gaeta

The last no-brainer, though I'm still upset with the FX voters for yet again snubbing John Gaeta's work. The same thing happened with the two Matrix sequels. No matter what you think of those films, the effects were ground-breaking and beautiful. Who has this guy pissed off in the FX community to keep getting snubbed like this? I'd put Speed Racer above the competent Iron Man work any day of the week.

And that's that. Sorry for going on at such great length. After tonight I hope to stop thinking about this for at least eight months. Getting annoyed by something so trivial is exhausting.

I Semi-Promise This Will Be The Last Oscar-Related Poll...

One last poll before the big day (Feb 22nd), when some really mediocre movies get handed awards, and hopefully, just to make the whole thing not a total disaster, Mickey Rourke and the FX teams on Benjamin Button get their gold-plated just desserts too. By now it's probable that even though Slumdog has mysteriously been hit with all sorts of unsavoury accusations of child exploitation and dismissal by India, it's going to romp home. Though I am on record as not being best pleased about that, I'll just be happy if people stop referring to it as the longshot. It really isn't. By now people desperately want it to succeed, and it will. Benjamin Button will go home with some technical stuff, and Slumdog will get the biggies, a decision that will be the sanity-twisting equivalent of this...


...and, eventually, just as regrettable and embarrassing for the Academy members and the folks at home as this.


That inevitability aside, there are some actual longshots in that list. The ones no one thinks to bet on. In some awards the longshot occasionally wins (no one expected Bryan Cranston to get an Emmy for his Breaking Bad work as there were other, better known nominees there), but with the Oscars it pretty much never does. That doesn't mean they should be ignored though. Hence this new poll. Which longshot nominee would you most like to see score an upset and win?

Richard Jenkins (Best Actor for The Visitor)

Melissa Leo (Best Actress for Frozen River)

Michael Shannon (Best Supporting Actor for Revolutionary Road)

Viola Davis (Best Supporting Actress for Doubt)

Gus Van Sant (Best Director for Milk)

Thomas Newman (Best Soundtrack for Wall*E)

Martin McDonagh (Best Original Screenplay for In Bruges)

Peter Morgan (Best Adapted Screenplay for Frost/Nixon)

Wally Pfister (Best Cinematography for The Dark Knight)

Kung Fu Panda (Best Animated Feature Film)

The Baader Meinhof Complex (Best Foreign Language Film)

Milk (Best Picture)

Iron Man (Best Visual Effects)

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Best Makeup)

The Dark Knight (Best Sound Editing)

Wanted (Best Sound Mixing)

I will admit, I have no idea if Wanted really had amazingly well mixed sound. I just want to know if anyone out there is eager for a movie featuring a Loom of Fate, bullet-curving, and bomb-rats to win an Oscar. If anyone votes for it, I'll assume Mark Millar popped by. Anyway, have at it, my pretties.

Another List, This Time Featuring A Lot Of Wishful Thinking

It's Golden Globes time! The world is waiting for glamour, and so far we've got a red thing on Eva Longoria, some awesome gray hair on Alec Baldwin (sporting a very fetching bit of chewing gum he used to intimidate The Vile Seacrest), and way too much eyeliner on Debra Messing (who, according to Canyon, keeps doing her "sexy face", which sounds unpleasant). Anyway, remember when I said I was done with lists? WRONG! Why not one more? Here is who I would love to win tonight, though I really don't think any of them actually will. We're avoiding the actual award results tomorrow (we're taping the awards on Sky Movies Premiere and won't get to watch it until tomorrow night), so there will be a long period with this completely inaccurate speculation sitting here without comment from us. Bear in mind, many of these are not my real favourites of the year. For instance, Frost/Nixon is not my favourite of the year (see posts passim), but compared to Slumdog Millionaire, or The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons (as the idiots as E! called it a little while ago), it was easily the tops. My choice for each is in italics.

BEST MOTION PICTURE, DRAMA

* The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
* Frost/Nixon
* The Reader
* Revolutionary Road
* Slumdog Millionaire

BEST MOTION PICTURE, COMEDY

* Burn After Reading
* Happy-Go-Lucky
* In Bruges
* Mamma Mia!
* Vicky Cristina Barcelona

ACTOR, DRAMA

* Leonardo DiCaprio, Revolutionary Road
* Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
* Sean Penn, Milk
* Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
* Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

ACTRESS, DRAMA

* Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
* Angelina Jolie, Changeling
* Meryl Streep, Doubt
* Kristin Scott Thomas, I've Loved You So Long
* Kate Winslet, Revolutionary Road

ACTOR, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

* Javier Bardem, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
* Colin Farrell, In Bruges
* James Franco, Pineapple Express
* Brendan Gleeson, In Bruges
* Dustin Hoffman, Last Chance Harvey

This is a tough category. I'd be happy if either of the In Bruges actors won as well, and I wouldn't cry if Javier won either. The sexy bastard.

ACTRESS, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

* Rebecca Hall, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
* Sally Hawkins, Happy-Go-Lucky
* Frances McDormand, Burn After Reading
* Meryl Streep, Mamma Mia!
* Emma Thompson, Last Chance Harvey

A win for Rebecca Hall would also be cool. She was the best thing about that inexplicably adored movie.

SUPPORTING ACTOR

* Tom Cruise, Tropic Thunder
* Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
* Ralph Fiennes, The Duchess
* Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
* Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

* Amy Adams, Doubt
* Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
* Viola Davis, Doubt
* Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
* Kate Winslet, The Reader

I've not seen Doubt, but I'd also like Viola Davis to win, because she's so amazing in everything and should win awards on a regular basis.

DIRECTOR

* Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
* Stephen Daldry, The Reader
* David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
* Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
* Sam Mendes, Revolutionary Road

I didn't like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button(s), but Fincher's direction, despite the odd peculiar choice, was still the most impressive of the candidates in this category. I am astonished by the scope of the movie even as I am annoyed by its narrative slightness.

SCREENPLAY

* Simon Beaufoy, Slumdog Millionaire
* David Hare, The Reader
* Peter Morgan, Frost/Nixon
* Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
* John Patrick Shanley, Doubt

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

* The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany)
* Everlasting Moments (Sweden)
* Gomorrah (Italy)
* I've Loved You So Long (France)
* Waltz With Bashir (Israel)

I don't know if the subject matter is too dark, but Gomorrah should walk this. It's a breathtaking movie.

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

* Bolt
* Kung Fu Panda (Obviously!!!)
* WALL-E

ORIGINAL SCORE

* Alexandre Desplat, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
* Clint Eastwood, Changeling
* James Newton Howard, Defiance
* A.R. Rahman, Slumdog Millionaire
* Hans Zimmer, Frost/Nixon

ORIGINAL SONG

* "Down to Earth," WALL-E; music by Peter Gabriel, Thomas Newman; lyrics by Peter Gabriel
* "Gran Torino," Gran Torino; music by Clint Eastwood, Jamie Cullum, Kyle Eastwood, Michael Stevens; lyrics by Kyle Eastwood, Michael Stevens
* "I Thought I Lost You," Bolt; music & lyrics by Miley Cyrus, Jeffrey Steele
* "Once in a Lifetime," Cadillac Records; music & lyrics by Beyoncé Knowles, Amanda Ghost, Scott McFarnon, Ian Dench, James Dring, Jody Street
* "The Wrestler," The Wrestler; music & lyrics by Bruce Springsteen

TELEVISION

TELEVISION SERIES, DRAMA

* Dexter
* House
* In Treatment
* Mad Men
* True Blood

ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES, DRAMA

* Sally Field, Brothers & Sisters
* Mariska Hargitay, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
* January Jones, Mad Men
* Anna Paquin, True Blood
* Kyra Sedgwick, The Closer

I only watch Mad Men of these shows, but I want anyone other than January Jones to win. Give it to Mariska Hargitay as a consolation for being in The Love Guru.

ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES, DRAMA

* Gabriel Byrne, In Treatment
* Michael C. Hall, Dexter
* Jon Hamm, Mad Men
* Hugh Laurie, House
* Jonathan Rhys Meyers, The Tudors

TELEVISION SERIES, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

* 30 Rock
* Californication
* Entourage
* The Office
* Weeds

ACTRESS IN A TELEVISION SERIES, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

* Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?
* America Ferrera, Ugly Betty
* Tina Fey, 30 Rock
* Debra Messing, The Starter Wife
* Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds

ACTOR IN A TELEVISION SERIES, COMEDY OR MUSICAL

* Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
* Steve Carell, The Office
* Kevin Connolly, Entourage
* David Duchovny, Californication
* Tony Shalhoub, Monk

If Alec wins I hope he's still chewing gum.

MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

* A Raisin in the Sun
* Bernard and Doris
* Cranford
* John Adams
* Recount

ACTRESS IN A MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

* Judi Dench, Cranford
* Catherine Keener, An American Crime
* Laura Linney, John Adams
* Shirley MacLaine, Coco Chanel
* Susan Sarandon, Bernard and Doris

I actually haven't seen John Adams, but I love Laura Linney. Terrible bias, I know.

ACTOR IN A MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

* Ralph Fiennes, Bernard and Doris
* Paul Giamatti, John Adams
* Kevin Spacey, Recount
* Kiefer Sutherland, 24: Redemption
* Tom Wilkinson, Recount

Why Kiefer? Because DAMMIT!!!!

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

* Eileen Atkins, Cranford
* Laura Dern, Recount
* Melissa George, In Treatment
* Rachel Griffiths, Brothers & Sisters
* Dianne Wiest, In Treatment

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A SERIES, MINISERIES OR MOTION PICTURE MADE FOR TELEVISION

* Neil Patrick Harris, How I Met Your Mother
* Denis Leary, Recount
* Jeremy Piven, Entourage
* Blair Underwood, In Treatment
* Tom Wilkinson, John Adams

I chose Denis because he's the only performance I've seen of those this year, but of course it would also shut out Doctor Mercury (aka Piven). That would be sweet.

Tracey Morgan was just on extolling the virtues of collard greens, which was the perfect moment to sign of and go to bed. I look forward to finding out how much the Golden Globes judges disagree with me (i.e. by voting for Slumdog Millionaire over and over again).

Listmania! The Films of 2008, Part 3

As I had feared, it's not three posts about the movies of the year, anymore. This one got so big I've split it in sort-of half. The other will be up tomorrow, if you can bear the wait.

Best Hero: Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr. - Iron Man)


Honourable Mentions:
Racer X (Matthew Fox - Speed Racer)
Po (Jack Black - Kung Fu Panda)
Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor - Redbelt)
Zen (Yanin Vismitananda – Chocolate)
James Bond (Daniel Craig – Quantum of Solace)

Best Villain: The Joker (Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight)


Honourable Mentions:

Brett (Jack O'Connell - Eden Lake)
Roland Cox (Samuel L. Jackson – Jumper)
Tai Lung (Ian McShane - Kung Fu Panda)
Prime Minister Cao Cao (Fengyi Zhang - Red Cliff: Part One)
Randall Bragg (Jeremy Irons - Appaloosa)

Worst Hero: D’Leh (Stephen Strait - 10000 B.C.)


Dishonourable Mentions:
Rick O’ Connell (Brendan Fraser - The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor)
Dr. Jack Gramm (Al Pacino - 88 Minutes)
Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra - Doomsday)
David Rice (Hayden Christensen – Jumper)
Joe the Depressed Assassin (Nicolas Cage - Bangkok Dangerous)

Worst Villain: Jon Forster (Neal McDonough – 88 Minutes)


Dishonourable Mentions:
Gallian (Ray Liotta – In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale)
Marriage and the restrictions placed on the human soul by societal conventions (The 1950s – Revolutionary Road)
Man’s inhumanity to his fellow man (Humankind at its worst – Blindness)
The cynicism of people in modern Britain (Happy-Go-Lucky)
Random vaguely Arabic looking Warlord ZOMG Fear of the Other!!! (Affif Ben Badra – 10000 B.C.)

Most Tragic Villain: Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart - The Dark Knight)


Honourable Mention: Prince Nuada (Luke Goss - Hellboy II: The Golden Army)

Most Lovable Character: Master Oogway (Randall Duk Kim - Kung Fu Panda)



Character Who Is An Affront To Humanity And Logic And Must Never Be Emulated: Poppy (Sally Hawkins - Happy-Go-Lucky)

Most Annoyingly Passive Character: Jamal Malik (Dev Patel - Slumdog Millionaire)


Dishonourable Mention: Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)

Most Thought-Out Character of the Year: Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull)


It was a hell of a tough sell, making the audience care about and accept the young turk who would, if rumour was to be believed, take over the whip and fedora in future Indiana Jones movies. That's less likely now, but even so, Spielberg, Lucas, David Koepp (and Frank Darabont from his previous draft) took great care in crafting the character of Mutt Williams, and Shia LaBeouf brought him to life beautifully. Sadly, all involved should have spent as much time getting the final half of the film right as well.

Character We Want To See Suddenly Appear In Every Movie Ever Made Just To Insult Everyone With His Piercing Insights Into The Hypocrisy Of Bourgeois Middle-Class Life: John Givings (Michael Shannon - Revolutionary Road)


Gupta of the Year: Jack Lira (Diego Luna – Milk)


Dishonourable Mentions: Professor Harold 'Ox' Oxley (John Hurt - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), Ashley Kowalski (Dreama Walker - Gran Torino)

Most Lovable Cranky Hardass of the Year: Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood – Gran Torino)


Honourable Mention: The Chief (Alan Arkin - Get Smart)

Badass of the Year: Zen (Yanin Vismistananda - Chocolate) If you don’t believe me, check out the stunt at 3:14.



What a woman. Can we make her the Queen or something?

Best Scene: Scary prisoner Tiny Lister makes a fateful decision in The Dark Knight.


Honourable Mentions:

Philippe Petit completes his high-wire walk between the Two Towers in Man on Wire.
The twenty minute single take conversation in Hunger.
Tony Stark bickers with his enthusiastic robot helper in Iron Man.
The BPRD enter the troll market in Hellboy II.
Po's kung fu dream in Kung Fu Panda.

Best Action Scene: The various mini-battles within the Eight Trigrams Formation in Red Cliff: Part One.


Honourable Mentions:

Tai Lung escapes from prison in Kung Fu Panda.
The mid-movie blowout chase sequence in The Dark Knight.
The first stage of the Casa Cristo 5000 from Speed Racer.
The eighteen minute showdown at the end of Chocolate.
The mental car chase at the end of Vantage Point.
Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor) defends the honour of himself and his training academy against thoughtless corporate exploitation in the final few minutes of Redbelt.
General Ma Xinyi (Jet Li) takes on a line of cannons in The Warlords.

Most Upsetting Sight of the Year: Whatever the hell that thing was that terrorised poor Manuela Velasco in the apartment penthouse at the end of [Rec].


Honourable Mentions:

A topless Robert De Niro having rough sex with Carla Gugino in Righteous Kill.
Mickey Rourke getting stapled in The Wrestler.
Tim Roth getting kicked across a campus into a tree in The Incredible Hulk.
Jeff Anderson discovering the downside of filming anal in Zack and Miri Make A Porno.
Stephen Rea trapped in a windshield for several hours in Stuck.

Long-Awaited Showdown Between Action Icons of the Year: Jet Li versus Jackie Chan in The Forbidden Kingdom.



Not-So Long Awaited Showdown Between Action Icons of the Year: Jason Statham versus Craig Fairbrass in The Bank Job.

Scene I Cried At Most This Year: Matthew Fox's final scene in Speed Racer. And I'm not ashamed to admit it.


Honourable Mention: Mutt Williams picks up his father's hat in the final scene of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Most Satisfying Finale of the Year: The Dark Knight


Honourable Mentions: The Wrestler, Speed Racer, The Orphanage, Step Brothers

Worst Garbled and Re-Edited Ending of the Year: Babylon A.D.


Dishonourable Mentions: Dante 01, Jumper

Most WTF OMG Brain-Altering Applause-Inducing Moment of the Year: Batman brings the Batpod to a very abrupt stop during the bravura chase sequence from The Dark Knight.

Best Bad Guy Death: Random Burmese soldier shot in the head with an arrow prior to falling onto a landmine in Rambo (It's at the two minute mark.)



Honourable Mentions:
Rosie Perez crushed by an exploding car in the pitch-perfect action-homage finale to Pineapple Express.
No. 8 (Pongpat Wachirabunjong) plunges several floors to a very painful death (see also several of his cronies who suffer a similar bone-crunching fate) in the demented finale of Chocolate.
The tragic fall of Prince Nuada in Hellboy II: The Golden Army.

Best Location Shooting: The Dark Knight

As silly as it sounds, filming almost entirely in Chicago is one of the things that makes The Dark Knight such a distinctive movie. Even though Chicago has been used many times before as a location, Christopher Nolan and his crew made it feel like a new place, somewhere that doesn't exist in our world. Here's a feature showing the locations, which is making me want to visit and do a big tour. Nolan's attempt to show as much of "Gotham" as he can, making it a character in the movie, means he also films a lot of interiors in corner offices with large windows looking out over the city. Especially in IMAX, the effect is breathtaking.

Honourable Mentions:
The Incredible Hulk - Judicious use of New York locations make the big FX finale shot in Canada look more convincing, and the early scenes in Brazil, with astonishingly long shots of the huge favelas, are fantastic.
In Bruges - Obviously.
Slumdog Millionaire - When you can tell what the hell is going on.

Right, the next one will be the last one, I hope. It'll be even more miscellaneous than this one, if you can believe that.

Listmania! The Films of 2008, Part 1

Later than just about every other best movies list in the world, here is my overly elaborate take on 2008, completed now in frustration over yet more bullshit release date nonsense which means, in addition to never having the time to see everything, many promising movies won't come out in England until mid-Jan to late Feb, if we're lucky. Especially annoying is that, apart from a couple of truly terrific and left-field movies (I'm thinking primarily of The Wrestler here), the stuff we get early is the sub-Miramax tripe that openly begs for Oscar attention, especially if it stars Kate Winslet. Meanwhile Rachel Getting Married, Frozen River and Synecdoche, New York (for example) are delayed until an annoyingly late date or not given a release date at all.

This renders list-making a futile exercise, as some truly great films end up on UK screens long after the rest of the world has moved on from them. A couple of UK press end of year lists that I read this week featured No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood, two films from 2007 that got released here way too late to get on UK lists. Even worse, two movies I definitely would have put on my 2007 list (Sweeney Todd and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) came out here too late for me to see them. Though I thought both films were stunning, I won't put them on my 2008 list as I would feel bad for dropping two recent films out of the list. For the record, Sweeney Todd is Tim Burton's best film since Ed Wood, and Diving Bell should have swept the Oscars. And now I can relax about it.


Of course, I could have delayed this even more, and Canyon was lobbying for a further delay until we'd finally caught up, a plan completely ruined by the news that Synecdoche’s UK release has been changed from February to, get this, FUCKING MAY (!!!!!!!!!), but even if it was coming out soon, after a couple of weeks of insane movie-watching marathons I'm just about spent, and the delay has been exacerbated by illness. Sorry, newly-released Che and The Reader, and sorry other missed movies such as Standard Operating Procedure and Seven Pounds and Changeling and the potentially coma-inducing BBC Films costume drama trio of The Other Boleyn Girl, The Edge of Love and The Duchess, you'll all have to wait. Consider this list the almost definitive one for 2008, with the proviso that if Synecdoche and Rachel Getting Married are as good as we hope, this list is subject to change. Further to that, if we see any turds from 2008 that have yet to be released, my worst lists might change as well.

N.B. Yes, I know I've cheated by shoving eleven movies into my top ten, but The Wrestler completely ruined my original list by being absolutely amazing. Blame Darren Aronofsky and his wonderful cast and crew for excelling themselves. Also, there are a lot of Honourable and Dishonourable Mentions, but I've tried to match them up so there are an equal amount of each. It makes sense in my head. Please just indulge me and my listophilia.

Best Movies of the Year:

1. The Dark Knight - L.A. Confidential featuring a man dressed as a bat, a psychopath in makeup, and a fallen hero with half a face. Nothing else this year could top the thrill of seeing the superhero genre show its potential for complex emotional and intellectual storytelling.

2. Kung Fu Panda - A love letter to a genre and a culture, a beautiful spectacle, an inspirational tale, and a perfectly pitched comedy. Repeated viewings have not yet dimmed its good-natured genius. And when I say repeated viewings, I mean obsessive-level rewatching.

3. In Bruges


Martin McDonagh’s debut feature, a perfectly constructed blast of cynicism and optimism, made me laugh harder than anything else this year, before sending me to the edge of my seat in the final act and keeping me there until the credits rolled. McDonagh has very definitely arrived.

4. Red Cliff: Part One - John Woo’s return to form, a glorious big-screen blend of heroism, romance, and trademark uncynical bromance, is a perfect crowd-pleaser. China now has its Lord of the Rings, and if you’re lucky enough to see the uncut original, so do you.

5. Gomorra - Five tales intertwine to explore the extent to which organized crime in Italy corrupts and destroys everything around it. The palpable sense of moral and physical decay pours from the screen. A staggering achievement.

6. Redbelt


Mamet’s pared-down classic, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor at the height of his powers, generates suspense through mundane threats to the life of an honest, honourable man, and resolves them in an outrageously exciting fashion. The final ten minutes had me alternately gasping and cheering.

7. Speed Racer - THAT’S RIGHT!!! Delirious, kaleidoscopic, overwhelming, sincere, thrilling, and like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Building from a hectic, information-packed opening to a breathtaking climax, the Wachowskis rewrote the rules of cinema and yet the public spat on them for their efforts. Ingrates.

8. Pineapple Express - Just like Hot Fuzz before it, the maligned action genre is sent a mash note in the form of a comedy. Also like Hot Fuzz, I expect to be rewatching this and finding new funny moments for a long time to come. As Seth Rogen says several times during the movie, "Nice!"

9. Iron Man - If The Dark Knight is a vision of the future of the superhero genre, Iron Man is the perfect encapsulation of what the old school can do when it’s done right. The best Marvel adaptation since X-Men 2, and the perfect delivery vehicle for concentrated bursts of Downey Jr. genius.

10.= The Wrestler - Some critics who have written about this movie have complained at how much it depends on redemption story sub-genre clichés, but seriously? Have they even seen it? The most uplifting depiction of bleak despair of recent years, beautifully performed and shot, and deeply moving.

10.= Eden Lake


Where the hell did this come from? Borne of the raging torrent of fear and mistrust that infests Mail-reading England, James Watkins’ debut feature recalls Straw Dogs and Deliverance, but still feels utterly modern. Horror movie of the year, with a kickass finale too.

Honourable Mentions:

Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Man On Wire
Hunger
Wall*E
[Rec]

Worst Movies of the Year:

1.= 21


Formulaic, anodyne, sickeningly white-washed, unambitious, boring, stupid, poorly cast, and just plain offensive. When people bitch about Hollywood product being trash, this is the film they are imagining in their head.

1.= Cassandra's Dream - The worst and most inept student film about morality ever made, with terrible amateur dramatics and shaky production values. Except it’s not a student film. It’s by the director of Manhattan, and is made by professionals. How does this happen?

2. 88 Minutes - Something this wrong-headed achieves a kind of perverse beauty. It’s not the only film on this list that I love for being bad, but it’s possibly the one I had the most difficulty believing existed (see also: Jon Avnet’s follow-up Pacino project Righteous Kill)

3. Slumdog Millionaire - I have more to say on this sorry excuse for a movie below. Much more.

4. Bangkok Dangerous - Bad Nicolas Cage movies are often a thing of pure joy. This, however, is a boring, poorly-made chunk of pointless junk. Depressing, predictable, inept; how did this get made? Why did this get made? My environmentally conscious self weeps for the landfills bloated with unwanted copies of this tripe.

5. Happy-Go-Lucky - It’s beloved by many. It’s sure to get Oscar nominations. It also features a starring performance of technical brilliance that is, nevertheless, almost unwatchably annoying. The phoniness of Leigh’s appalling movie made me gag with revulsion, but it’s the almost blanket critical praise that aggravates my soul the most.

6. Mamma Mia! - As I am not a middle-aged woman with very low standards, I did not enjoy this film at all. Pierce Brosnan’s singing haunts my dreams. Still, the studio made enough money to pay for my therapy, right?

7. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor


More on this in a forthcoming post, but, as with 21, the archetypal mindless spectacle used as an example to justify hatred of populist cinema by pseudy asshole critics who think King of Phonyland Mike Leigh is an artiste.

8. The Happening - Watched with the right people, it’s one of the most entertaining films of the year. In the cold light of day? A startlingly ill-conceived mess. Even then it’s still somehow lovable. But, you know, shit.

9.= In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale - Dr. Uwe Boll brings the pain. A hero called Farmer (because he's a farmer), acres of pure ham from the bad guys, hectic and incomprehensible action scenes, and respected actors openly cashing a paycheck and sullying their careers horribly? I feel compelled to keep watching it.

9.= 10000 B.C. - Usually I don’t care if a movie plays fast and loose with historical truth, but even though we don’t know much about life 12000 years ago, this is still amazingly improbable. Makes Independence Day look like the original Day The Earth Stood Still.

10. Babylon A.D. - I feel bad adding this to the list. Fox’s usual army of mindless film-wrecking idiot accountants sabotaged the project, but even so, it’s tough to get through without lots of depressed sighing. And yet the director’s cut just got released on DVD. So I want to see it. Though I refuse to give Fox any more of my money. What to do? What to do?

21 and Cassandra’s Dream are at the top of the poll as 21 made me angriest of all the films I’ve seen this year, but Canyon, who considers Cassandra's Dream the worst and most poorly made movie of the decade, made a compelling case for it to get to the top spot. Who am I to argue? Ah, but why are 10000 B.C. and In The Name Of The King: A Dungeon Siege Tale vying for the coveted ninth place? Because of an imminent Face/Off post that I’ve been planning for months now but never got around to. Will I manage to in the near future? Probably not. There’s a drum peripheral and a game of Civilisation IV calling out to me. If I get around to it, all will be made clear.

Most Disappointing Movie of the Year: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

As with the announcement of all of David Fincher’s movies, anticipation for it rendered me almost unable to function as a productive member of society for the majority of 2008, which makes its mediocrity all the harder to bear. Ambitious, sprawling, beautiful to look at and technically an award-worthy marvel, it’s also a million years long, mawkish, and rendered absurd by some third-act character decisions that defy logic. Comparisons to screenwriter Eric Roth’s previous work on Forrest Gump have not been made idly. Several beats are similar/identical, the main characters are innocents dragged across the historical events of 20th Century America like a bouncing ball on a karaoke lyric screen, and sentimental visual motifs crop up in the final scenes (a feather in Gump, a hummingbird in Button).


The same reliance on dire platitudes and cutesy asides, and a similar structure are bad enough, though we entertained ourselves by finishing every sentence in the movie with the phrase "box of chocolates". Also amusing to us was that the movie spent most of its length showing what happened to Benjamin between the 1920s and the 1960s, skipping the last few decades of his life. Of course, Roth had already covered those years in Gump, and didn't need to go over it again. We reckon his next script will be about a three hundred year old man, and Roth can pick over the first two hundred years of American history.


It's especially galling as I wanted to embrace a Fincher movie that was so different from his other movies, hoping that a whimsical tone would work just as well as the cynical tone of some of his better movies, but sadly, I now feel like the archetypal outraged internet ranter bitching about how Fincher "pussied out" because he didn't make Seven II: The Sevening or whatever. It's not that at all. If anything Button is less sentimental, more cynical than Gump, though not by much. It just never kicks into a higher gear, and then, after idling for two hours, stalls completely. Still, a lot of the performances are great, and the effects are the best of the year. I spent the first ninety minutes muttering, "How? Seriously, how did they do this?" So it's got that going for it.

Dishonourable Mentions:

Tropic Thunder (not funny enough)
Transporter 3 (not exciting enough)
Hancock (a frustrating mess)
Son of Rambow (charming but frustratingly slight)
Choke (about as cinematic as a table reading)

Overrated Movie of the Year: Slumdog Millionaire

For the majority of the year I was convinced I would be having another rant about Mike Leigh in this post, but I get to put the boot into Danny Boyle instead. Currently topping innumerable critics polls, Slumdog Millionaire has captured the imagination of the audience in such a complete way that I strongly suspect there is some witchcraft involved. Did no one see what a hollow and tedious mess it is? Did the astonishing ugliness not make anyone want to vomit? Is no one bothered by the bewilderingly fatuous script? I gather the numerous illogicalities, contrivances and insultingly two-dimensional characters have been explained away by many as conventions of a fairy tale, which Slumdog Millionaire, despite paying lip-service to the terrible poverty of India, most certainly is, but that defence is a huge insult to the writers of actual fairytales. The Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen were better writers than this. The other comparison made was that the film is Dickensian. Again, why do people suddenly think Charles Dickens was an idiot?


My biggest problem with Danny Boyle's directorial style in the past is that he has no impulse control, and no understanding of how shots should relate to each other, approaching even the most unassuming shot with the intention of making it as kinetic and unusual as possible. Slumdog Millionaire is the worst example of this so far, with almost every shot on a Dutch tilt, lit with garish colours, usually with characters on different focus planes, and then made even more ugly with rapid-cutting and the same kind of fractured and smeared slow-motion that occasionally ruins Peter Jackson's otherwise pristine films. After a couple of minutes I had a terrible headache, made worse when I concentrated on the deeply unlikeable characters, piss-poor performances, and embarrassing hokey plot.

That's even before we considered the patronising treatment of Indian poverty, the simplistic understanding of human nature, the childish humour, and, worst of all, the fact that this film is produced by Celador Films. Celador is the company that makes Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, so please don't tell me this movie is about opening Western eyes to the terrible conditions in Indian shanty-towns, or a celebration of Bollywood conventions (the few times that genre of movie is directly addressed are horribly awkward and poorly done, especially the crappy dance number over the credits). It's an advert for a TV show, which means Boyle has done this kind of shilling twice (the first time was Millions, a film about the UK National Lottery funded by proceeds from the UK National Lottery Fund).


Just to really annoy me, I'd finally embraced the guy after Sunshine, the only film he's made (other than Shallow Grave) that matched the style with the substance and created a beautifully choreographed suspense experience, where his worst impulses were ignored. Slumdog Millionaire is, sadly, a return to form, and we're worse off for it. If it does indeed become the dark horse contender at the Oscars, I expect a slowly dawning realisation not long after that that Boyle has made this year's Crash. At least, I hope that does happen.

Dishonourable Mentions:
Happy-Go-Lucky, Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Underrated Movie of the Year: Speed Racer


I won’t bang on about it again, but the blanket critical dismissal of this movie has become an almost impregnable barrier to reappraisal. Nevertheless, fans won’t be silenced, and talkbacks and comment sections still feature outbreaks of praise for the Wachowski’s insane vision. May time absolve it of the imaginary sins against cinema it has supposedly perpetrated. This, Danny Boyle, is how sensory overload is done.

Honourable Mentions: Pineapple Express, Be Kind Rewind, Blindness, Forgetting Sarah Marshall

That's a lot of bitching about movies. And there are two more posts to go! Hell, I watched over eighty movies this year, almost a personal best, so I've got a lot to say. Expect kudos for Robert Downey Jr., and an unwanted award for The Bandit himself, Mr. Burt Reynolds.

It Occurred To Me This Morning...

...The casting speculation surrounding Wonder Woman should be over by now. Surely it's obvious who should play her. Real-life Amazon and inspirational lady icon Amanda Palmer!


She's a fighter, she's a feminist, and she's awesome (not to mention properly FIERCE). Let's hope DC wise up and sign her immediately. Their film output this year has been a mixture of the amazingly wonderful (The Dark Knight, obviously) and the perplexing. I mean, if you're going to base a movie around a relatively minor Justice League villain, I understand why you would alter the character for the mainstream audience, but this is beyond the pale.


The namechange is annoying too. He's from the planet Kalinor, not Dieppe or wherever the hell this thing is set.

Merry Christmas, you lovely people. Hope you all get what you most want, i.e. a proper Despero movie with Keith David back on voice duties instead of post-awesomeness Ferris Bueller.

If I Were An Academy Member

Ah, Christmas. Yuletide logs roasting on an open fire, chestnuts singing Silent Night, and carollers hanging from the trees. Doctor Who is on the box, turkeys are drying in the oven, and Miramax are so busily following the template of their former CEs Harvey and Wallbanger Weinstein that we might as well rename the holiday Miramaxmas. Yes, as Canyon acknowledged with glee the other day, this is the time of year when the prestige movies come out and hunt for an Oscar nomination, and despite ourselves we love it.

Of course, Hollywood is so desperate for award recognition at this time of the year that it packs US cinemas with prestige movies starring Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet, but even though that manouevre is just as cynical as the summer season heralding dozens of movies featuring flying men and exploding cars, it's okay, because Christmas is a time for great art to be released into the arms of a culture-starved audience. Summer is where the downtrodden are avenged by robots or ubermensch. Winter is where the downtrodden are given a voice to speak of how hard it is to be a quirky teenager in an age of conformity, or a genocide survivor, or a racist who humiliates Thandie Newton and then saves her life because OMG that's three-dimensional characterisation right there.


This year, though, the disdained Hollywood product that I love has begun to generate more critical appraisal than usual, and it's possible that genre fare, so often dismissed by the critical establishment, might see some award season love. So far this month the Los Angeles Film Critics Association has chosen Wall*E as its film of the year, the AFI has added The Dark Knight and Iron Man to its 2008 list, and Robert Downey Jr. and James Franco have been nominated for "edgy" performances (i.e. uncomfortable for square audiences) in Tropic Thunder and Pineapple Express respectively. Though the Foreign Press Association members decided The Dark Knight isn't worthy of as much respect as the pitiful crowd-pleasing monstrosity Mamma Mia!, the bleak superhero crime saga still might sneak past the anti-genre bias of the Academy (thanks to Skyblade for providing me with some perspective on that).

It's fair to say that the nominations are still going to feature many of the usual and predictable candidates, with nominations going to Stephen Daldry, Sam Mendes, and other respectable and approved directors (I'm not denying they are talented, but they are rather safe choices). For instance, industry favourite Ron Howard is sure to get a Best Director nomination for Frost/Nixon, which I'm in two minds about. His work on that is far less adventurous than that of Chris Nolan, or Andrew Stanton, or Matteo "Gomorra" Girrone (just off the top of my head), but it's the best work of Howard's career, and as the movie is such a convincing success that I would feel churlish for being upset about it. Stanton might get a nod, which would please me despite reservations I've expressed before. Sentimentality aside, Wall*E was more daring than almost everything else released this summer. Mind you, I have to say, of all the likely nominations to come, my favourite will probably be Kate Winslet, English Rose, playing an illiterate Nazi who shags a teenager and ends up as an OAP after spending years in jail. Will Ricky Gervais get a namecheck if she wins?


Other than Best Picture, a category which seems sure to be populated by Frost/Nixon, Milk, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire, and either Happy-Go-Lucky or The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, I think each category could possibly feature a surprise. With that in mind, our new poll is to see which unlikely but deserved nomination would you most like to see happen. I'll be honest, I don't expect many votes for this one, because I don't expect everyone to have seen all of them, but I remain curious about it nevertheless.

I'm leaving out Best Picture as I don't think there's any room for surprise there (though I really hope Dark Knight crushes the Mike Leigh-helmed affront to the world of cinema), but the rest of the main categories are represented. Only a couple of these possibilities really stand a chance, but I've tried hard not to come up with anything too outlandish (like a Best Director nod for the Wachowski Siblings, or a Best Actor nomination for Jack Black in Kung Fu Panda). So, vote for the one you would like to see happen, and I'll end the poll before the official nomination announcement in Feb. Here are the candidates, and yes, in the poll I removed the word Best. It's fair to say I don't think any of these should be nominated for Worst anything.

Best Director - Martin McDonagh (In Bruges)

Best Actor - Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man)

Best Supporting Actor - Aaron Eckhart (The Dark Knight)

Best Actress - Frances McDormand (Burn After Reading)

Best Supporting Actress - Emily Mortimer (Redbelt)

Best Photography - Caleb Deschanel (The Spiderwick Chronicles)

Best Art Direction - Peter Francis (Hellboy 2)

Best Costume Design - Eiko Ishioka (The Fall)

Best Visual Effects - Speed Racer

Best Foreign Language Picture - Let The Right One In

Best Original Screenplay - Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Pineapple Express)

Best Adapted Screenplay - David Gordon Green (Snow Angels)

Or you could ignore the poll and just tell me your dream nominations in the comments.

Your Best And Worst Of Summer '08

With my brain fully occupied with compiling my Films of the Year list (I'm taking this as seriously as Jonas Salk took his polio vaccine research), and the various critic circles announcing their awards of the year, it's time to deep six the two polls I've run since the summer, asking our readers for their favourite and least favourite films of the summer. Interestingly, the poll for least favourite got half the votes of the favourite. I guess people either made a point of avoiding watching terrible movies, or we attract a lot of people who feel uncomfortable ragging on the accomplishments of others. A noble sentiment, but I just watched The Mummy 3 - Yetis on Parade, and I feel like my soul has been frozen in carbonite, so IT IS ON. I'll get to that in a moment. First, the results from both polls:

What Was Your Favo(u)rite Summer Movie?

The Dark Night Of Gotham’s Soul - 10 (31%)

Super Kung Fu Fighting Action Panda - 4 (12%)

Iron-Clad Billionaire - 4 (12%)

Wall*E - The Adorable Robot Messiah - 3 (9%)

Man Walk On Wire - 2 (6%)

Hellboy 2: The Surprising Awesomeness - 2 (6%)

Indiana Jones And The Impregnable Fridge of Safety - 2 (6%)

M. Night Shyamalan’s Attack Of The Sentient Plants! - 1 (3%)

Won’t Someone Love Poor Speed Racer? - 1 (3%)

Hulk 2: Not As Good As Iron Man - 1 (3%)

Dope + Guns + James Franco = Hilarity - 1 (3%)

X-Files - Battle Of The Belief Systems - 1 (3%)

The Mummy: Franchise Of The Diminishing Returns - 0 (0%)

Sexuality In An Urban Environment - 0 (0%)

Star Wars: The Kinda Boring Years - 0 (0%)

Narnia II: How Many More Tedious Sequels? - 0 (0%)

Meet A Robotic Version Of Eddie Murphy - 0 (0%)

The Fresh Prince In: Depressed Superhero - 0 (0%)

Wanted: Assassins Fluent In Loom Binary - 0 (0%)

Ben Stiller Bites The Hand That Feeds Him - 0 (0%)

Streep And Brosnan Sing! - 0 (0%)

Jack Bauer vs. Some Evil Mirrors - 0 (0%)

What Was Your Least Favo(u)rite Summer Movie?

Meet A Robotic Version Of Eddie Murphy - 2 (12%)

Sexuality In An Urban Environment - 2 (12%)

The Fresh Prince In: Depressed Superhero - 2 (12%)

M. Night Shyamalan’s Attack Of The Sentient Plants! - 2 (12%)

Won’t Someone Love Poor Speed Racer? - 2 (12%)

The Dark Night Of Gotham’s Soul - 1 (6%)

Hellboy 2: The Surprising Awesomeness - 1 (6%)

Indiana Jones And The Impregnable Fridge of Safety - 1 (6%)

Star Wars: The Kinda Boring Years - 1 (6%)

Streep And Brosnan Sing! - 1 (6%)

The Mummy: Franchise Of The Diminishing Returns - 1 (6%)

Iron-Clad Billionaire - 0 (0%)

Narnia II: How Many More Tedious Sequels? - 0 (0%)

Wall*E - The Adorable Robot Messiah - 0 (0%)

Hulk 2: Not As Good As Iron Man - 0 (0%)

X-Files - Battle Of The Belief Systems - 0 (0%)

Super Kung Fu Fighting Action Panda - 0 (0%)

Dope + Guns + James Franco = Hilarity - 0 (0%)

Wanted: Assassins Fluent In Loom Binary - 0 (0%)

Ben Stiller Bites The Hand That Feeds Him - 0 (0%)

Man Walk On Wire - 0 (0%)

Jack Bauer vs. Some Evil Mirrors - 0 (0%)

It stands to reason that the most watched and most hyped movie of the summer gets big votes in the Love category, and a desultory single vote in the Hate one. I'm actually surprised it didn't get more Hate, as I've seen some real venom directed at it, either in kneejerk attention-seeking Fanboyese or in eloquent prose. Nevertheless, Love is where my own vote went. We saw it again in IMAX recently, and it still holds up, even without the excited audience and New-York-inspired brainmelt of our first viewing. That said, even though I maintain it's my favourite movie of the year so far (things can change in the final couple of weeks), I was sorely tempted to cast my vote for Kung-Fu Panda, which still delights after four viewings. Canyon placed her vote here, as she adores it without measure, even though her antipathy toward the martial arts genre means she resists the lure of my Jet Li collection. Why do you resist? Once Upon A Time In China is the wuxia nuts, my dear wife.


Also great after repeated viewings is Iron Man, which especially pleases me as those damnable fanboys were crowing about imminent FAIL throughout its production, shutting the fuck up as soon as the first trailer came out. Though Favreau's direction on Elf was occasionally shaky (and that final act remains disappointing no matter how often we see it), I still had hope, especially when Robert Downey Jr. got cast. So yeah, I'm smug about it.

That smugness is punctured, however, by my regrettable semi-apathy towards Wall*E, which I wanted to like much more than I did. Though it's obviously an amazing achievement, and kept me thoroughly entertained throughout, I do wish Andrew Stanton would resist the urge to make his films so ingratiatingly cutesy. He has very little impulse control for adding populist touches to his films, which is why Finding Nemo ended on about fifty-three climaxes with each character in the film having doubts about themselves and then overcoming those doubts in order to save the day, and why Wall*E, which heroically features very little dialogue, a bleak anti-consumer message laying the blame for the world's ills on the audience, and nods to sci-fi classics such as 2001 and Silent Running, goes and ruins it all with overlong romantic scenes of robots flying in space, obvious slapstick, and more Christ metaphors than Superman Returns (no mean feat).


It's the sort of film I expected would be my favourite of the year and ended up being much less interesting than I had hoped even though I was constantly impressed and brought to tears from time to time. In other words, a frustrating thing I will almost certainly go back and forth on for years to come (another example: Excalibur was on Sky Movies the other day and watching bits of it made me realise I love it now, after years of hate). Compare that to Ratatouille, which remains a glorious and thought-provoking entertainment that never compromises its message by winking at the audience. Stanton may be Pixar's money machine, but Bird remains their greatest artist (unless Up is as good as I hope it will be and Pete Docter gives him a run for his money).

Next up is the unimpeachable Man On Wire, one of the best documentaries I've seen in a long time, and one that made me burst out crying with zero warning. I'm a sucker for emotional manipulation in films, I will admit, but Man On Wire does nothing to tug the heartstrings, making the emotional impact of the final third even more profound. Kudos to James Marsh for making the most cinematic documentary I can think of, other than Wisconsin Death Trip which, I only found out afterwards, Marsh also made.


What a hero. His only fictional feature, The King, is on our Sky+ box, and once I've finished watching the various copies of this year's movies I have littering the house, I'll check it out, and in the meantime, I heartily recommend this film to all readers (as it's a Storyville documentary, there's a good chance it will be on BBC Four or BBC2 soon).

Hellboy II gets the same amount of love as Indiana Jones IV, which is good news for Mike Mignola and Guillermo Del Toro, and bad news for Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. I know which one I preferred, and it was a big surprise. Despite the continuing debate about whether it's okay to like Spielberg or not (of course it is. God!), and even though this film was good for the first hour and boring for the last, it was not a debacle, certainly when compared to other summer action movies made by hacks with no understanding of how to craft a scene or frame a shot (::cough::Rob Cohen::cough::). That said, it contained no sense of wonder, which Hellboy II did. This is a big deal for me as I usually resist Del Toro's movies a little, thinking them pretty but lifeless. This time it was Spielberg's film that left me unmoved, while Del Toro's film made me giddy with joy.


Funny how at this point in the poll, the movies getting one or two Love votes also get one or two Hates as well. Hellboy, Indy, The Happening, and Speed Racer split the audiences they got (big for Indy, relatively small for everything else). I've already dissed The Happening (twice, in fact) and praised Speed Racer, so I won't go into it again, other than to say I'm so happy someone else liked the Wachowski Siblings' crazed experimental race movie, which holds up to rewatching as well as Iron Man and Kung-Fu Panda. And I still cry at the end. Oh Matthew Fox, you'll be getting a few mentions in my end of year list, both pro (Speed Racer) and affectionate con (the demented Rashomon-meets-Bourne histrionics-fest Vantage Point).

Solitary votes for The Incredible Hulk (which I liked) and Pineapple Express (which I loved, and enjoyed even more second time around), and then a single vote for X-Files: I Want A Cruller With That Venti Mocha, from regular Shades of Caruso reader and commenter Johnilf. Though I wouldn't say I thought the film was actually good, it wasn't deserving of the critical drubbing it got. The argument that it was a long TV episode shown on the big screen was pretty accurate (though would the TV version feature performances from international megastars Amanda Peet and Xzibit? I don't think so!), but beyond its limitations as a film, it was also a powerful trip down memory lane for a lot of fans, and while watching it I found it hard to resist those nostalgic feelings. Plus, Billy Connolly was terrific as the psychic pedophile priest or whatever he was. OMG! It really is just like an average episode of the show, because I've completely forgotten the plot a few months after seeing it!

Nothing else gets a good vote, but there were some other bad ones. Two people saw Meet Dave, amazingly, and they weren't happy. I'll avoid and hold onto the memories of Billy Ray Valentine, thank you very much. Sex and the City: The Movie Experience gets two votes, one from Canyon, who saw it solo (I was asleep, is my defence), and was utterly dismayed by it while compelled to stay in her seat as the ridiculous clothes-wearing montages unfurled. Hancock gets two votes also, and while I was disappointed by it, I'll still be checking out the sequel. Seriously. The first one's problems were borne of the bass-ackwards exposition, and so a sequel exploring this mythology will maybe make the whole enterprise worthwhile.

Star Wars: The Low-Budget Clone Wars (which I was almost fond of until seeing the dreary TV series it was wrenched from) and Mamma Monstrosity! both get a vote each, but the final vote cast, yesterday afternoon, was for The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, which made me absolutely livid, so much so that I think I'm going to have to rant about it some other time, as it's wrapped up in some things Canyon and I have been chatting about during recent weeks. After that debacle, no votes for or against Tropic Thunder (a crushing disappointment), Wanted (ditto), Narnia II, or Mirrors, either due to the small sample of votes we got, or just because no one saw them or cared about them. In the case of Narnia I can understand that. I don't think I've ever been less interested in seeing a movie in my life, and not just because of the obnoxious religious propaganda. I'd rather see Sex and the City than this. I know!


Okay, another poll coming up, this time based around the Oscars (because if it's not lists, I'll obsess about award nominations). Once I've figured out the candidates, I'll stick that up.