Welcome to the special Academy Award edition of Talkin' Talkies! If you were hoping that I'd spend this post making fun of
The Astronaut Farmer, then you are out of luck (he's a farmer and his name is Farmer!). No, instead I will go over select categories of this Sunday's Oscars and tell you what I don't like about the nominations, who or what should've been nominated (and should've won in some cases), and who I think will actually win. Unlike previous Talkin' Talkies I actually have seen some of the movies that I will be talking about, though don't worry, I will still judge and viciously attack the ones I haven't seen. I'll try to keep these short because I have a lot of categories to talk about, possibly eleven. Ok.
Before We Get Started: Be prepared to hear about how much I love
Children of Men,
The Prestige, and
Pan's Labyrinth. Just saying.
Achievement in Makeup: Apocalypto, Pan's Labyrinth, and Click
Yes, you read that right,
Click got nominated for an Oscar, instantly making it the worst movie ever to receive such an honor. Now I must have seen the trailer a million times, as well as all of the commercials, and never, not once, did I see any special makeup. There has got to be some sort of fat suit, or characters in the future as old people sequence somewhere in this movie because I have no idea how else it could've been nominated.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Pirates? Slither? Ah, I don't really care - it's for makeup - but there had to have been a third movie out there with better use of a makeup, right?
Who Should and Will Win: Pan's Labyrinth
Best Original Song: An Inconvenient Truth, Cars, Dreamgirls (x3)
Really?: Do you think I'm not rooting for Randy Newman? He wrote the Bathroom Vocabulary Theme Song! I gotta support my boy.
Who Should and Will Win: If the only musical in the category (a musical nominated three times for the same award) doesn't win the Best Song, then that pretty insulting. That being said, I still hope Dreamgirls loses every nomination.
Achievement in Cinematography: The Black Dahlia, Children of Men, The Illusionist (Michael), Pan's Labyrinth, The Prestige
Yezzir: Three of maybe my favorite movies in a long time are nominated for this award, as well as another pretty awesome movie (The Illusionist) and the second worst movie ever to be nominated behind Click (The Black Dahlia). Cinematography is starting to become one of my favorite categories, so as long as one of my three wins, I'll be fine.
However: Children of Men should win this award. Get ready for me to be sweating this movie all over the rest of this post. It was unlike any movie I've seen in a long time, and in my opinion, it should've been nominated for just about everything.
Who Will Win: Children of Men, because it needs to be recognized somewhere.
Best Foreign Language Film of the Year: Pan's Labyrinth, Four Movies I Don't Care About
Seriously: Pan's Labyrinth is soooo good. If you can't read, or don't speak Spanish, or are too busy building a fence along the border (all three apply to so many people) then I feel very very bad for you because you'll never know how awesome this movie is. It's quite possibly the best movie I've ever seen by myself in the theaters. You only need yourself to watch a movie so get off my back.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: If Flags of Iwo Jima, or Letters of Our Fathers (whichever one is all in Japanese) can get nominated for Best Picture in the first place (more on that later) then why wouldn't it automatically be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film? In my opinion, it shouldn't be up for either. Unfortunately, the Academy is hanging from Clint Eastwood's balls for dear life.
Who Will Win: Pan's Labyrinth
Original Screenplay: Babel, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, Pan's Labyrinth, The Queen
Racism Is Bad: Does Paul Haggis have to be nominated for an Oscar every year? If Judi Dench wasn't still alive, then he'd be the new Judi Dench. The only truly good work he ever did was writing for
The Facts Of Life, and co-creating
Walker, Texas Ranger.
Who Should and Will Win: I'm going to be wrong, but let's go with
Pan's Labyrinth.
If Paul Haggis, and Letters From Iwo Jima wins this award, then I'm leaving the country.
Adapted Screenplay: Borat, Children of Men, The Departed, Little Children (not of men), Notes On A Scandal
Wait, I'm Confused: Borat had a screenplay? An adapted screenplay? Yes, I do know that there were scripted parts of the movie, and that it's categorized as adapted because of Da Ali G Show, but I still have a problem with it being nominated for an adapted screenplay, at least for this reason. My argument for why it should be an adapted screenplay is because Sascha Baron Cohen adapted to the people in the movie as Borat. Get it? I realize that this is probably the only place where the Academy feels comfortable nominating this movie, and that's really a shame, but I'll take what I can get.
Unfortunately: Borat is up against The Departed, which has famously been adapted from the Chinese thriller,
Internal Affairs, and Children of Men (which was a book). So no Borat win here.
What Does Christopher Nolan Have to Do to Get an Oscar?: Beats me. Is there anyone out there better at adapting existing stories (Memento, Batman Begins, The Prestige) into screenplays?
Who Should and Will Win: The Departed.
Best Actor: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ryan Gosling, Peter O'Drunk (O'Toole), The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air, Forest Forest Whitaker
Speaking of Borat: How Sascha Baron Cohen wasn't nominated for Best Actor I'll never understand. He is the only one on this list who truly acted. He acted amongst real people who had no idea who he was, and he did it perfectly. Is it really harder to act on a comfortable set or location, than it is to act in real life situations where you are under the constant threat of being attacked by racist Americans? You tell me.
Who Else Should've Been Nominated: I was having a conversation not too long ago about how awesome Clive Owen is. No matter the quality of the film, Clive Owen has done a perfect job every time he has performed. I feel so safe and at ease when he is on screen, and he needs to be recognized with a win at some point of his career. He's the Steve Nash of every movie he's in, except better at defense. I think he deserved to be nominated for Children of Men (are you sick of this movie yet?), and I would have him (and Cohen) replace Gosling or O'Toole. Don't get me wrong, I'm not mad that Gosling and O'Toole were nominated (it's nice to see random movies get Oscar shoutouts), I just think the Academy should have tried a little harder.
Anyone Else?: Yes, Christian Bale for The Prestige. Thanks for asking.
Who Will Win: Forest Whitaker in a blowout.
Supporting Actor: Alan Arkin, Jackie Earl Haley, Djimon Hounsou, Eddie Murphy, Mark Wahlberg
Huge: I haven't loved him in the past, but Hugh Jackman was awesome in The Prestige. It's really his non-mutated defining performance in my mind.
Who Will Win Despite Norbit: Eddie Murphy. I really hate it that Eddie Murphy is going to win this. If he should have been nominated and won for anything, then it should have been Bowfinger. I'm completely serious about that. I love that movie.
Best Actress: Penelope Cruz, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet
Just Give It To: Helen Mirren and move on. Normally I hate it when people win awards for playing a real life person because how hard can it really be? If it's so hard, then why not give an Oscar to Darrell Hammond every year? For some reason though I like Helen Mirren, so she can have it.
It Would Have Been Nice: If
Ivana Baquero, (Ofelia in Pan's Labyrinth) was nominated for Best Actress, but Meryl Streep needs an automatic nomination every year or else legally they have to cancel the ceremony.
Best Supporting Actress: Adriana Barraza, Cate Blanchett, Abigail Breslin, Jennifer Hudson, Rinko Kikuchi
Just Be Happy That I'm Not Writing This One All In CAPS
: Jennifer Hudson is going to win this award for sining one song reasonably well. I am about as angry over this as anyone should be. Seriously. I want to break things. I know I promised not to write in CAPS but HOW CAN A PROFESSIONAL SINGER WIN AN ACADEMY AWARD FOR PLAYING A CHARACTER WHO SINGS AS A SINGER IN A MUSICAL MOVIE BASED ON A MUSICAL PLAY THAT INVOLVES SINGING ESPECIALLY WHEN SHE SANG THE SONG EVERY WEEK ON AMERICAN IDOL TWO YEARS AGO?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? There are a million actresses out there who are never going to win an Oscar, but all Jennifer Hudson has to do is lip sync to a song she recorded earlier (and one she has been singing her whole life) and she gets to win for acting? I have a feeling that I, and I, and I, am going to be violently ill come Monday morning.
Who Should Have Been Nominated: Here's a perfect example of a young and talented actress who was snubbed so Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul can pat themselves on the back and awkwardly clap:
Claire-Hope Ashitey. Who is Claire-Hope Ashitey, you may ask? She plays Kee in Children of Men. No one has ever heard of her before and she came onto the screen and just killed. You people need to see this movie and then convince me that Jennifer Hudson is Oscar worthy instead of Ashitey. Please just do that for me. It will so totally be worth it.
Best Director: Alejandro González Iñárritu (Babel), Martin Scorcese (The Departed), Clint Eastwood (Letters to our Fathers About Flags of Iwo Jima), Stephen Frears (The Queen), Paul Greengrass (United 93)
Really?: Paul Greengrass and Stephen Frears were nominated? That's realy nice for them, but behind Jennifer Hudson, the Best Director category is what I'm most upset about. I know that this horse has been dead now for weeks, but it is an absolute sin that
Alfonso Cuarón was not nominated for the phenomenal job that he did with Children of Men. The entire time I was in the theater, I could only think about how delighted I was at every aspect of it, starting with the direction. Whether it was the awesome oners (long, continuous shots), or the water on the lens, or the coffee store bombing, I was there with Clive Owen and the other characters living the movie. It was an awesome feeling that stayed with me until it ended, and when it did end, it took me a couple minutes to come back into the real world. It was the perfect movie experience, and it was mainly because of Cuarón's direction. How it was ignored by the Academy really bothers me.
If You Have the Time: Read either or both of these interviews (
here and/or
here) with Cuarón.
In The End Though: It pretty muchs seals the deal for Martin Scorcese, which is nice. The Departed is pretty ok, and I think that it's finally time that Scorcese's Great Pumpkin appears. Good for him and his eyebrows.
Best Picture: Babel, The Departed, Letters From Iwo Jima, Little Miss Sunshine, The Queen
Well: I think The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine are both fine and should both be nominated. As for the other ones: I have less than zero desire to see any of them. Letters From Iwo Jima bothers me because it's a Foreign Language film nominated for Best Picture that isn't Pan's Labyrinth. I've talked to people who have seen Babel, and all they said to me was not to see it, which I like because that's what I originally thought. As for The Queen, isn't it more of a BAFTA type movie? It's great that Helen Mirren does a superb job, but isn't it really just a vehicle for her (much like
The New Guy was for
DJ Qualls)?
In Case You Haven't Figured it Out Yet: Here are my five nominees for Best Picture.
Then What?: For a while I would've said The Prestige, but that was before I saw Children of Men. All of my five picks are good, but nothing compares to how I felt while watching Children of Men, which is a shame because I was completely immersed in the worlds that the other four movies displayed. The problem though is that I knew that the other four movies were fictional, and Children of Men just felt so real to me that I forgot where I was for two hours. That's really what it's all about.
Who Will Win: The Departed, but don't be surprised if the cast of Little Miss Sunshine is dancing suggestively on the stage come the end of the night.
And I'm Done: Enjoy Ellen.
