Here are the major Oscar nominees (courtesy of Cinematical). My one major disagreement is the lack of Paul Dano in the best supporting category, he was fantastic. It was a pretty good year for movies so the fact that Breach, Zodiac, and Gone Baby Gone didn’t get a ton of love doesn’t bother me too much, although you could have replaced Juno with any of those films in the best picture nominees and I would have been happy. I bolded the ones I thought should win (I haven’t seen any of the foreign films so I didn’t bother there. Also, I apparently need to see The Savages). The most difficult for me to pick was best original screenplay. I gave it to Juno but really wouldn’t player hate if either Ratatouile or Michael Clayton won.
Best Picture
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Best Director
Julian Schnabel — The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jason Reitman — Juno
Tony Gilroy — Michael Clayton
Joel and Ethan Coen — No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson — There Will Be Blood
Best Leading Actor
George Clooney — Michael Clayton
Daniel Day Lewis — There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp — Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones – In the Valley of Elah
VIggo Mortensen — Eastern Promises
Best Leading Actress
Cate Blanchett — Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie — Away from Her
Marion Cotillard — La vie en rose
Laura Linney — The Savages
Ellen Page — Juno
Best Adapted Screenplay
Christopher Hampton — Atonement
Sarah Polley — Away From Her
Ronald Harwood — The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Joel and Ethan Coen — No Country For Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson — There Will Be Blood
Best Original Screenplay
Diablo Cody — Juno
Nancy Oliver — Lars and the Real Girl
Tony Gilroy — Michael Clayton
Brad Bird, Jim Capobianco, Jan Pinkava — Ratatouille
Tamara Jenkins — The Savages
Best Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck — The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem — No Country for Old Men
Phillip Seymour Hoffman — Charlie Wilson’s War
Hal Holbrook — Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson — Michael Clayton
Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett — I’m Not There
Ruby Dee — American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan — Atonement
Amy Ryan — Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton — Michael Clayton
Best Animated Feature
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf’s Up
Best Foreign Language Film
Beaufort
The Counterfeiters
Katyn
Mongol
12
I took advantage of my MLK Day off from classes by going to see Juno. Coupled with my first ever trip to Doc Films yesterday to see Once, this firmly establishes my indie street-cred for the next month or so. My thoughts:
Juno was pretty good, although I don’t think it lives up to all the hype (although what would?). It kind of reminds me of Little Miss Sunshine, which everyone seemed to love and I felt was just a decent little flick. Maybe it’s because of the general movie-going publics lack of exposure to indie comedy, therefore, when a decent indie comedy gets some good publicity everyone falls in love with it (I mean this in a non-snooty way). Your mileage may vary, whatever. The movie definitely took the whole concept in a direction that I didn’t expect, in many ways it’s a very small movie (I believe that’s the correct word) focused primarily on the relationship between Juno and the Adoptive parents, rather than on Juno dealing with her pregnancy. Anyway, it’s well done, the performances are excellent, and yeah go watch it.
Oftentimes, I don’t like what I call “extremely indie” movies, films with meandering semi-nonexistent plots, digital film and all that. The Puffy Chair comes to mind. Despite this, I really profoundly enjoyed Once. It’s basically a musically driven love story, with typical indie ambiguity and unhappiness. The best word to describe it? Cute, very cute. I’d imagine it would be a pretty solid date movie, although my ability to gauge these things may be horrifically flawed given the recent course of my life. Go see it, indie directors need to eat.
Final note: Flawless, a movie which I had heard nothing about, is solid. It’s a Michael Caine/Demi Moore heist movie. Well worth a shot.
My last post was basically incomprehensible. Bullet point summary:
- Golden Globes = Stupid
- Mad Men = Great TV
- The Wire = Better TV then Mad Men
Ok, hope that cleared it up. As the quarter has started up again and is in full swing, I’ll hopefully still be able to post semi-regularly. I’m going to see Juno on Monday and I hope to catch Cloverfield in the next week as well. Also, I just got the (relatively) new Pharaoe Monche CD, so I’ll post my thoughts on that (and some other early 2008 releases) when I really get a chance to listen. Finally, I’m going to a talk and dinner with Phillipe Buc from Stanford and if anything interesting comes of that, I’ll write about it.
The Golden Globes (winners)
Atonement??? What the fuck? Did these people see No Country for Old Men? Did they see There Will be Blood? Christ.
It’s nice that Mad Men won though. I don’t think I’ve written about it before, but it’s really fantastic.
Plus, if you don’t know (and you should know) The Wire started up again last week. Holy shit, fantastic. If you’ve never seen it then start now, alternately hope you melt and die.
Finally taking advantage of living in a major city, I saw There Will be Blood yesterday and it was fan-goddamn-tastic. I’ve had a mixed opinion of Paul Thomas Anderson. I enjoyed Boogie Nights but responded with a solid “meh” to Punch-Drunk Love and I thoroughly disliked Magnolia (a film which could be the topic of a whole rant that I will assuredly never write). However, if he can keep making movie like this then, zounds Scooby, I’m all for it. Daniel Day-Lewis is fantastic, which should surprise absolutely no one, and Paul Dano, from Little Miss Sunshine and The Girl Next Door, was also quite good as the not-quite-morally-spotless preacher. I’m still undecided about the end of the film, however (slight spoilers coming, deal with it). Anderson juxtaposes (In a recent conversation with a friend, she asserted that “juxtaposition” is a typical douchebag word that people (namely college freshmen) use to sound smart. I’m inclined to agree, but it actually works here. What this says about me as a person, I will not expound on.) the overwhelming loneliness of Daniel Plainview’s life with his victory over the preacher (in a particularly bad ass fashion). So, I guess he wins in the end? maybe. Anyway, good movie.
Anyway, this was one of the last movies of 2007 that I really want to see (Juno and The Assasssination of Jesse James remaining) . So here’s my rough top ten, in a sort of particular order:
1. No Country for Old Men – by far my favorite movie of the year
2. There Will be Blood
now in no particular order:
3. Superbad
4. 28 Weeks Later
5. Hot Fuzz
6. Michael Clayton
7. Gone Baby Gone
8. Ratatouile
9. Breach
10. 3:10 to Yuma
I like the fact that a lot of good westerns came out this year, westerns rule. Oh, also This is England is pretty good. A little sad, but good.
