Oscars 2008 Pre-game Shenanigans

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/12/there_will_be_an_oscar_for_dan.html

Is it nuts to think No Country and There Will Be Blood will both end up as Picture noms? They seem safe enough (critically acclaimed, relatively mainstream (esp. NC)), but then academy doesn't like bleak.

Atonement is ripe for the picking.

pta will get nommo'd best director, but it doesn't feel very best pic.

Daniel Day has Actor handicapped.

he basically only does oscar films, which i think is lame but there we have it.

fuck this thread

don't get your peachpit head swelled, legendmeister.

Has anyone got the Golden Globes nominations list? The BBC just has a news story wanging on about the British votes.

I don't really care much about the Enrique-Morbius beef, but there really doesn't seem to be much need for this thread while the Detrius thread is active. We could move the conversation here when nominations are announced, though.

as noted above, Atonement will win best picture.

I'm gonna go with the crazy dark horse pick and say Depp for best actor, Page best actress.

all of these in ref. to the Oscars, mind you, not the GGs.

also I have just noticed that Into the Wild got completely snubbed except for...Vedder!!

I'm with jaymc in the sense that the Oscars have always gotten their own thread. This one got started way early, but so did the detrius thread.

And as I predicted on the other thread, PTA will almost surely end up the odd director out, if he even gets nominated (they do have Lumet to attend to over there). Best picture will for sure be:

Atonement
No Country for Old Men
Sweeney Todd

And then the other two slots are a toss up between Michael Clayton, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Charlie Wilson's War and American Gangster. There Will Be Blood is apparently too divisive to break into this lineup.

And, yeah, if Blood gets no other support outside of Day-Lewis, it will be hard to imagine him actually winning. I doubt Depp would be stepping in ftw, but maybe McAvoy? The last time Day-Lewis surprisingly lost was to a hot young male ingenue.

When Day-Lewis beat Cruise, he was the hot young male ingenue, but he had the paralysis thing going for him.

Charlie Wilson's War being nominated would almost be worse than Crash winning. But I doubt very much it'll happen, after all folx expecting a "Best Comedy" see a Muslim warrior get up from prayer and fire a rocket launcher at the audience... in the opening shot. Still ,fuck the GGs for resurrecting it.

has CWW been screened yet?

It's been a trailer for EVERY MOVIE I've seen in the last month, and during the pre-show a handful of other times.

it opens on the 21st. Committed H'wood lefties may not like stories that it's been edited with a chainsaw to play down the fact that, uhhh, Afghanistan didn't turn out so good really.

Sounds right up their alley, really. But it will probably go the way of The American President, right?

That said, what a relief Rob Reiner's latest is turning out to be a non-entity. As bad as Oscar taste is, it could always get worse.

xp: oh, The Amer Prez was Sorkin too, right? I hate the guy's smarmy kowtowing to liberal fantasies, so I sure hope so.

Yeah, it was Sorkin before Sorkin was SORKIN. It was written in the Clinton years, hence its almost total lack of dramatic urgency.

we could also be referring to A Few Good Men.

xp

oh, that hasn't changed! CWW is 97 minutes long, and half that time is Hanks drinking, whoring and trying to escape drug charges. Balanced against, you know, a 10-year war w/ the USSR.

Yes, but the Reagan years were like that.

So naturally Hanks is the one NOT getting nominated? (xpost)

Hoffman is actually good in it. Hanks is certainly the first name I think of to play a 6'4" Texas hedonist.

morbz why the fuck do you care about this movie so much

To the extent I care, it distorts recent history.

So does Hairspray.

well, "recent" in relative terms

well I bet Hairspray doesn't have "Based on a true story" title upfront (even tho it is)

59 Best Song eligibles?

http://www.cinematical.com/2007/12/16/academy-announces-59-contenders-for-original-song-oscar/

CHUCK WORKMAN SOBS QUIETLY

The Writers Guild has notified the Hollywood Foreign Press Association and Dick Clark Productions that their requests for an agreement to allow writers to prepare material for the 65th Annual Golden Globe Awards show have been denied.

The Guild has also denied a request from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for a waiver in connection with the use of clips from motion pictures and past Academy Awards shows for use during the annual Academy Awards presentation.

clips from motion pictures and past Academy Awards shows

Wait, how is this any different from showing reruns?

I look forward to the fat-free Oscars. How about...an hour?

xp: new context? u see, Chuck Workman CREATES.

Anyone who complains about the length of the Oscar telecast doesn't really love the Oscars. The fact that it's a bloated, self-congratulatory mess is part of the appeal.

I envision Jon Stewart doing his Reggie Van Gleason voice at least 6 times. "HOOOOOOO, no cuhlips!"

an oscars without the canned quips would be refreshing

Yeah, hearing Clooney & Co bait the FCC with improvised 'filth' wd be way more exciting.

I mean, I kinda get why people like the long telecast, but I don't want to stay up until 1am just to find out that, yes, Atonement won after all.

Haha, it would maybe be the first time the movie winning outdoes the actual show for phony pomp.

from the NYT:

"...though a request had not yet been made, the union’s directors had already decided they would not grant a waiver for writers, including the prospective host Jon Stewart, to work on the show. Mr. Stewart declined to comment in an e-mail message sent on Tuesday."

I am envisioning the Oscars becoming a 60-minute PBS special.

he basically only does oscar films, which i think is lame but there we have it.

Except for that Terry Gilliam movie that no one saw.

And what is the deal with these Oscar-bait roles knocking me on my ass this year? First Amy Ryan, then Hal Holbrook. Now Vanessa Redgrave. I am turning into Rex Reed.

Eric, when are you coming out for Julie Christie?

have Atonement and Sweeney Todd both lost their Oscar glow, as far as getting 6-8 nominations goes?

Yes they have. I'm sort of wondering if Atonement will get anything outside of maybe one acting nod and costume design.

"Asked about the fate of the Oscars, one specialty distrib said Tuesday: 'It's like contemplating my own mortality. I know it's something I have to face, but not today.'"

-- from a 1.8.08 Variety story

outside of maybe one acting nod

the Ronan child or KK?

how in hell are Atonement's chances upped by the GG win, when they have no overlapping members w/ the Academy?

maybe the Hollywood Foreign Press can start bribing the Academy's membership too.

Atonement seems like such a Oscar film that it's really hard for me to imagine it getting snubbed in favor of Juno or Michael Clayton. I don't really understand the backlash: it got good reviews, right?

too mainstream

There is no empirical bump. But if Atonement was nominated by the Academy (since ballots came in before the GGs), it does give its chances for a win a minor boost. Of course, the Globes haven't predicted BP since Chicago, and even that seemed to just get in under The Pianist's wire.

Atonement is this year's Memoirs of a Geisha.

atonement was written by britishes, not your striking communiss americans: SUBTEXT.

so sight unseen i think it has the proverbial shot, and surely the fox-searchlight fake indie thing is over with now? again sight unseen i don't think 'juno' has the legs.

there's no way -- sight unseen -- that something as dark as 'no country' will win best oscar pic. and that might go for 'blood' too. where is the 'dreamgirls' candidate in the mix?

So, if Julie Christie wins the SAG award, she's a lock for Best Actress, no?

should i see atonement?

Rex Reed and Andrew Sarris certainly think so -- i don't think i could stand 2 hours of Keira Knightley though

you're jesting now, nrq.

yeah more or less. i will see 'no country', but probably not the other contendahs.

maybe living in flyover country is what amplifies Oscar season ... it's like the one time of year that most of the film-going world is on the same page about what movies to get excited over, et al.

Keira Knightley is onscreen for maybe a quarter of the film.

I don't know why I feel this vague sense of disappointment that Atonement's fortunes are falling. I haven't even seen it.

It would've been nominated in a heartbeat 10 years ago, but as Morbs pointed out, today's model Oscar juggernaut is jacked-up, bloody action picture with a name-brand director attached.

is this your way of telling me to stay away from There Will Be Blood?

there will be blood is not a jacked-up bloody action picture, fwiw. for truth in advertising it should be called there will be some blood, eventually.

i don't understand the fuss about no country, which i think is pretty medium-warm. but i guess since fargo didn't win best picture the coens are eligible for the career-recognition nod. plus cormac mccarthy is at the peak of great-american-artist lionization, which would probably help.

there's hardly any blood in 'TWBB'.

but more than in Juno, presumably.

I'm not sure there's any Oscared jacked-up, bloody action picture before The Departed. Maybe it was an anomaly.

'the godfather'

too arty to be "jacked up," and it's not an "action picture," it's a family melodrama.

with machine guns

i don't think it's any artier than 'the departed', and i like both films. and 'the departed' is not an action picture anyway.

all i'm saying is there have only been bloody films since the end of the 60s, and some of them have won oscars, and that's not a bad thing.

I wasn't talking good and bad. The Departed is significantly bloodier than The Godfather, and much less sentimental (and much worse).

So what does everyone think will actually win? If Atonement is there I'm still betting it'll win but if not it has to be No Country.

Atonement won't win.

The Academy's reminder list of eligible features:

http://www.oscars.org/80academyawards/reminder/reminder_titles.html

they should nut up and give it to 'zodiac' but having been released ages ago they won't.

Silence of the Lambs was released in February '91, but being a hit helped.

If Juno keeps making dough, I wouldn't be surprised if it's chosen over the bloodier (and superior) competition.

Morbs, that jacked-up bloody action epic meme came from you.

he basically only does oscar films, which i think is lame but there we have it.

Except for that Terry Gilliam movie that no one saw.

-- milo z, Wednesday, 19 December 2007 20:43 (3 weeks ago) Link

Daniel-Day Lewis has never been in a Terry Gilliam movie.

think milo means that film DDL did with his wife, dunno why.

xp: I know, EH, but they're your words and nrq is misusing my idea. I was pretty much speaking of The Departed and whatever followed (ie, I haven't seen NCfOM so I'm only guessing where it fits).

(and I plead not guilty to ever starting a fuggin' meme)

he basically only does oscar films, which i think is lame but there we have it.

I knew he didn't work much, but I didn't realize he's only been in a grand total of 8 films since My Left Foot.

why wait til Monday to forecast?

Pic: Into the Wild, Juno, Michael Clayton, No Country, TWB Blood

Actor: Clooney, Day-Lewis, Depp, Hirsch, Mortensen

Actress: Blanchett, Christie, Cotillard, Jolie, Page

Sup. Actor: Affleck, Bardem, Hoffman, Holbrook, Wilkinson

Sup. Actress: Blanchett, Keener, Redgrave, Ryan, Swinton

Director: PTA, Coens, Gilroy, Penn, Schnabel

...and the rest, as Bill Murray usta say, who cares? I think Joe Wright and/or Knightley might survive the Atonement inertia, but oh well.

I doubt Blanchett will make the actress cut, even with the SAG nomination. I vote Linney.

The main reason I keep insisting that Atonement will be there and win is that a) I hated it and b) I predicted it two months ago. No logic, just stubbornness.

SO does everyone think Day-Lewis is a shoo-in for the win or is Depp a dark horse possibility?

I can't see Blanchett getting a lead actress nom.

xp

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Blanchett was put back in supporting.

no, I'm saying double nomination for Cate (Elizabeth II). they really really like Blanchett (ditto Depp and Keener).

Unless of course she gets a nod for Elizabeth: The Golden Age!

xp again

but c'mon, that was so reviled there's no way she'll get a nod for it.

oh, noooooo? Reviled enough for SAG!

Since the ballots were mailed before the Juno buzz I doubt Ellen Page is the choice to win, but I'm still having trouble with the star of a furren film about Edith Piaf (despite the Academy's love of biopics) and Julie Christie being the frontrunners.

Huh, I feel like the Juno buzz started as soon as it was released in early-to-mid December. (I saw it on Dec. 16.) Ballots weren't mailed out until Dec. 26.

uh, surely the "buzz" hasn't yet affected anyone's chance to win as long as they're nominated?

ask the makers of Atonement.

jaymc: it wasn't a major hit yet.

but I don't get that analogy; Ellen Page is widely believed to be a near-cinch nomination. Presumably the direction of the buzzshit after the 22nd will determine her chances of upsetting Cotillard and Christie. (Has anyone as young as 20 won Best Actress? Counting the seconds til jaymc's answer...)

Marlee Matlin was 21: she's the youngest.

Page will turn 21 before the ceremony but will still be a few months younger than Matlin was.

omg

And yeah, I'm with Morbs, I don't see how the date nomination ballots were sent out has anything to do Ellen Page's chances for a win.

xpost lol

Ellen Page is widely believed to be a near-cinch nominatio

No, guys, I'm talking about a WIN, not the nod, as I wrote here:

Since the ballots were mailed before the Juno buzz I doubt Ellen Page is the choice to win

Seems like kind of an up-to-the-minute thing to me though - like Murphy apparently getting fucked over last year thanks to Norbit, which didn't come out until, what, February?

So what ballots are you talking about, Alfred?

since the AWARD ballots aren't going out for a week or more yet, "before the Juno buzz" ain't relevant.

yeah, that part I didn't know. I should hang out with gabbneb to learn how balloting works.

I mean, I don't know the exact date that award ballots get sent out, but I assume they can't be sent out until it's determined who's on them.

This forecaster brings the goods, and joins the echo chamber of non-rockist critics of I'm Not There as "insufferably academic." Kids today!

man i *wish* academia involved that much awesomeness.

Well, that bit was basically from Ed's mouth to my blog entry. I trust his take.

fooey!

(I wondered why you were writing in the royal "we")

Yeah, and all the "should be nominateds" are Ed's too. Though I would've shortlisted Hal Holbrook and Vanessa Redgrave too, obv.

boy, you HAVE stopped going to movies.

I thought Anna Paquin won BA for The Piano

-- wanko ergo sum, Friday, January 18, 2008 1:05 AM (17 hours ago) Bookmark Link

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

i think it was best supporting actress

-- Rubyredd, Friday, January 18, 2008 1:08 AM (17 hours ago) Bookmark Link

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And anyway, the youngest in that category is Tatum O'Neal for 'Paper Moon'.

-- Michael White, Friday, January 18, 2008 6:35 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

jaymc, do the math!

Another reason why it's dumb that I'm banned from the Noise Board.

O'Neal (10) and Paquin (11) were both nominated and won for Best Supporting Actress.

Justin Henry (8) was nominated but didn't win for Best Supporting Actor.

As far as the Best Actress category, Ellen Page won't be the youngest nominated. That was Keisha Castle-Hughes, for Whale Rider, a couple of years ago. She was 13.

This is amazingly comprehensive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_and_youngest_Academy_Award_winners_and_nominees

(I mentioned Justin Henry just because he's the youngest person to be nominated for any kind of Academy Award, besides those kiddie awards they gave to Shirley Temple and Mickey Rooney in the '30s.)

are you kids still at it?

I just love to watch him IN THE ZONE!

There Will Be Blood score declared ineligible for not being quite up to the standards of "written directly for the screen" set last year with Babel's win.

that's annoying, it was a great score.

Alright, my final predix on the categories they're announcing tomorrow morning (slightly changed from the Slant ones for a few no-guts-no-glory picks) ...

BEST PICTURE
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

BEST DIRECTOR
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Sean Penn, Into the Wild
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Joel & Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood

BEST ACTOR
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd
Ryan Gosling, Lars and the Real Girl
Emile Hirsch, Into the Wild

BEST ACTRESS
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Angelina Jolie, A Mighty Heart
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James…
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Paul Dano, There Will Be Blood
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Vanessa Redgrave, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Juno
Knocked Up
Michael Clayton
Ratatouille
The Savages

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Away From Her
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Zodiac

BEST FOREIGN FILM
The Counterfeiters (Austria)
Days of Darkness (Canada)
The Trap (Serbia)
12 (Russia)
The Unknown (Italy)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Persepolis
Ratatouille
The Simpsons Movie

Though I'm having trouble imagining Michael Clayton, of all things, being the top nomination getter overall.

in a few minutes!

juno, everywhere.

weird 'atonement' lack of director/actor noms.

blanchett for 'elizabeth 2' is going to raise eyebrows i think.

dddl is the hillary clinton of this bitch and i kind of want george clooney to win rly.

Jason Fucking Reitman?

well I was wrong about blanchett...but I was right about atonement!!

lol Tommy Lee Jones for ...Elah.

boy, the Academy loves Cate Blanchett.

Sexy young things Gosling and Hirsch cancel each other out.

nice to see mortensen get a nod.

Not that I was a fan of The Simpsons Movie, but ... Surf's Up? How Persepolis managed to slip in there when obviously the ballots are being handed off to branch members' kids is beyond me.

now I wonder whether Blanchett will cancel herself out.

boy, the Academy loves Cate Blanchett.

-- Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, January 22, 2008 1:50 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

i'd love me some cate blanchett

Neither Blanchett nomination has a shot in hell.

winners = atonement, day-lewis, christie, blanchett, bardem.

she's rockin the shit in 'i'm not there' but won't win.

xpost

I'd like to think she's neck in neck with Amy Ryan, but this category's always full of surprises.

i think juno will get best picture. seriously.

winners = no country, coens, day-lewis, page, holbrook, dee

Atonement got no editing nod = no win.

Though Reitman's nomination does open it up for what Little Miss Sunshine was supposed to do last year to actually happen this year. Brrr.

eric I think you're right about the coens but "twbb" and "no country" split the awesome vote.

no country would be the bleakest/darkest oscar win since the 70s. i honestly think juno will do it.

juno = 2nd place pick ftw

every year they remind us that they do boring like nobody's business. atonement will prevail I tells ya.

It would stand to reason that Juno would win. The Oscar do suck, after all.

Atonement is way better than your standard frills-and-prestige pic.

Complete list of 80th annual Academy Award nominations announced Tuesday:
1. Best Picture: "Atonement," "Juno," "Michael Clayton," "No Country for Old Men," "There Will Be Blood."
2. 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."
3. 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."
4. Supporting Actor: Casey Affleck, "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford"; Javier Bardem, "No Country for Old Men"; Hal Holbrook, "Into the Wild"; Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Charlie Wilson's War"; Tom Wilkinson, "Michael Clayton."
5. Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett, "I'm Not There"; Ruby Dee, "American Gangster"; Saoirse Ronan, "Atonement"; Amy Ryan, "Gone Baby Gone"; Tilda Swinton, "Michael Clayton."
6. Director: Julian Schnabel, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"; Jason Reitman, "Juno"; Tony Gilroy, "Michael Clayton"; Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men"; Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood."
7. Foreign Film: "Beaufort," Israel; "The Counterfeiters," Austria; "Katyn," Poland; "Mongol," Kazakhstan; "12," Russia.
8. Adapted Screenplay: Christopher Hampton, "Atonement"; Sarah Polley, "Away from Her"; Ronald Harwood, "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly"; Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, "No Country for Old Men"; Paul Thomas Anderson, "There Will Be Blood."
9. Original Screenplay: Diablo Cody, "Juno"; Nancy Oliver, "Lars and the Real Girl"; Tony Gilroy, "Michael Clayton"; Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava and Jim Capobianco, "Ratatouille"; Tamara Jenkins, "The Savages."
10. Animated Feature Film: "Persepolis"; "Ratatouille"; "Surf's Up."
11. Art Direction: "American Gangster," "Atonement," "The Golden Compass," "Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street," "There Will Be Blood."
12. Cinematography: "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," "Atonement," "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," "No Country for Old Men," "There Will Be Blood."
13. Sound Mixing: "The Bourne Ultimatum," "No Country for Old Men," "Ratatouille," "3:10 to Yuma," "Transformers."
14. Sound Editing: "The Bourne Ultimatum," "No Country for Old Men," "Ratatouille," "There Will Be Blood," "Transformers."
15. Original Score: "Atonement," Dario Marianelli; "The Kite Runner," Alberto Iglesias; "Michael Clayton," James Newton Howard; "Ratatouille," Michael Giacchino; "3:10 to Yuma," Marco Beltrami.
16. Original Song: "Falling Slowly" from "Once," Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova; "Happy Working Song" from "Enchanted," Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz; "Raise It Up" from "August Rush," Nominees to be determined; "So Close" from "Enchanted," Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz; "That's How You Know" from "Enchanted," Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz.
17. Costume: "Across the Universe," "Atonement," "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," "La Vie en Rose," "Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street."
18. Documentary Feature: "No End in Sight," "Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience," "Sicko," "Taxi to the Dark Side," "War/Dance."
19. Documentary (short subject): "Freeheld," "La Corona (The Crown)," "Salim Baba," "Sari's Mother."
20. Film Editing: "The Bourne Ultimatum," "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly," "Into the Wild," "No Country for Old Men," "There Will Be Blood."
21. Makeup: "La Vie en Rose," "Norbit," "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End."
22. Animated Short Film: "I Met the Walrus," "Madame Tutli-Putli," "Meme Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven)," "My Love (Moya Lyubov)," "Peter & the Wolf."
23. Live Action Short Film: "At Night," "Il Supplente (The Substitute)," "Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)," "Tanghi Argentini," "The Tonto Woman."
24. Visual Effects: "The Golden Compass," "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," "Transformers."

Nice with those No COuntry sound nods.

and I tell yak, no Best Picture in 30 years has won without getting nominated for Best Editing; and Atonement isn't even nominated for director.

* ya

And if editing is still a bellweather for a Best Pic win ... then it's down between the two dark candidates.

I think those old standards have been falling like dominoes lately.

I'm keeping the faith. that football game was always supposed to predict presidencies too.

xp

why do they announce at 5.30am?!?!?!?! really weird.

three enchanted songs and no walk hard? lame. also vedder must be pissed!

action movies and comedies -- ie the best kind of films -- always robbed.

boo @ no original score nod for 'no country'

they ought to have 'best use of pop song'.

Thrilled that Into the Wild's horrific songs were snubbed.

me too. worst thing about my fave movie of the year.

Cinematography is, again, a pretty solid category. Maybe not quite the miracle that was last year, but close enough.

although really they're no worse than the dreck from 'once'. *ducks*
xp

boo @ no original score nod for 'no country'

haha.

they should have thrown 'zodiac' a cinematography bone ffs.

putting out zodiac in february had to be one of the biggest studio blunders of last year.

it was intended for late 06... and i think fincher has an oscarbait film lined up for late this year.

the only consistent, successful historically successful predictor at the oscars is that if I like it IT WILL FAIL.

yeah I heard about fincher's new oscarbait. hmm.

I am predicting Juno will become a dvd gift box with Crash, so next holiday season you can give your relatives 2 "controversial" piece of shit movies that won best picture.

juno's best picture nom kinda weirds me out because of how BADLY edited it is.

Boner decision of them all reveals its sheer lameness now: There Will Be Blood was shunted aside for ... fucking The Kite Runner?!

(in score, I mean)

at least it didn't take its pic nod!

eric of the nominees which pic is your fave? no country?

Yeah, pretty easily.

yay for michael clayton recognition!

and for Madame Tutli-Putli!

i like this year's nominations.

Atonement is way better than your standard frills-and-prestige pic.

If you mean the ones I think you mean, no. At least Knightley didn't get a BILF nomination.

Thrilled that Into the Wild's horrific songs were snubbed.

Well, you can dry your tears over those 8-year-old "shitty songs" from Juno lifting the soundtrack to #3 last week with this, then. (I don't like Vedder but the songs weren't as bad as I'd feared.) Into the Wild love was severely overestimated -- too good, as usual.

The worst film nominated for anything may be Beaufort. Ye gods.

I really don't think Fincher adapting Fitzgerald's "Benjamin Button" is guaranteed 'Oscarbait.' Could be a Fight Club b.o. pancake all over again.

putting out zodiac in february had to be one of the biggest studio blunders of last year.

No, I think 3 darkly violent honorees in a year are too much to expect, and it would've flopped in any season.

And again, who cares?

lol at arbitrary swapping out of "twbb" for that other movie with dust in it for sound mixing.

if we're going to care about the oscars, we may as well care that the best films don't get nommed. or is that just nutsy?

xp

it's delusional

I mean better than Merchant-Ivory (the only one of which I've seen and liked is Maurice)

I'm sad that Into The Wild didn't make it to best picture or director, or I'm Not There for editing (which should win the rest too, but you know, being realistic).

Despite watching nearly 100 films last year, I have still managed not to see any of the nominated leading actress performances. Juno and The Savages aren't out here yet, but still, it's a bit weird.

"shitty songs" from Juno

Least necessary scare quotes ever.

I mean better than Merchant-Ivory (the only one of which I've seen and liked is Maurice)

You've liked some you haven't seen?

Room with a View is a splendid Merch-Ivory. Scorsese's Edith Wharton film is miles better than Atonement too.

No, because that would be retarded.

(x-post)

Eric H, hater of the Edwardians and the lo-fi movement.

Of course, The House of Mirth was better than M-I, Scorsese and Atonement combined.

lo-fi lack of movement, more to it

xp: wrong again

at least Cate Blanchett assures that Eric will now be forced to see the Haynes film before his award predix, right?

how did you do on the noms, btw?

I am so bewildered about people's love for Michael Clayton. It has some nice touches, but I must have so wildly missed what others found truly great in it.

Good thing: the Once train ran out of steam. Another film that's just quite good and somehow touches people in ways that make me doubt them or me, depending on my mood.

Alba, George Clooney is the prom king of Hollywood. That's all there is to it.

(tho I haven't seen MC yet)

We did 24/30. Pretty bad, by our standards.

Ed will undoubtedly write about Supp. Actress for the win predix, since we typically swap those from before.

That does mean I have to try and see Elizabeth: The Quickening before then, tho.

Alba, George Clooney is the prom king of Hollywood. That's all there is to it.

And yet Ocean's Thirteen was so cruelly overlooked.

Morbs, I never would've had you pegged for someone who would argue for Merchant-Ivory over T. Davies.

SOME M-I, dude! Davies was way better when he was mining his own life. I really don't like the Ivorys very much aside from Room -- they kinda fucked up my favorite Forster novel, Howards End.

Yeah, British costume pics aren't really worth arguing over. Even Mirth wasn't my favorite film of the year or anything.

I'm just saying, Atonement falls squarely in the middle position as far as my personal BP rankings go.

Agent Scully just wasn't cast very well in Mirth, and TD romanticized it too much.

Mc-A-Boy and Vanessa were easily the two best things in Atonement, boith fittingly snubbed.

"British costume pics" is a really ghettoizing and reductive phrase. TWBB is a "Western costume pic."

(or "retarded Italian horror film")

Mc-A-Boy and Vanessa were easily the two best things in Atonement, boith fittingly snubbed.

No arguments there.

"British costume pics" is a really ghettoizing and reductive phrase.

Tell that to those greenlighting them with Oscars on their minds.

my friend's movie (tutli-putli) was nominated!!! for animated short!!! OMG!!!

action movies and comedies -- ie the best kind of films -- always robbed.

^nrq defined^ (both genres never worse than in the last 20 years)

Awesome, s1ocki.

"British costume pics" is indeed a pretty dumb, reductive way of looking at film, but I suppose some people do go and watch movies on the basis that they are about British people from a bygone era, and maybe that's as good a way of judging something a genre as any.

Radiohead guy unsurprisingly passed over for score, too.

so how many did No Country & TWBB get?

8 each...

TWBB's snub was already noted yesterday when it was declared ineligible for some nebulous reason.

(said reason apparently being that they needed to nominate the crappy score for The Kite Runner)

Madame Tutli-Putli is awesome, are there any bookies that take money on best animated short? i haven't seen most of the others but it seems like a sure thing to me.

(both genres never worse than in the last 20 years)

-- Dr Morbius, Tuesday, January 22, 2008 3:03 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

^morbius defined^

and Alexander Supertramp only got Holbrook and editing?

(losing to Bardem and something else, I think)

I'm seeing the German foreign nominee this week, I hope it doesn't blow.

I actually see Holbrook winning, and good because he is the best thing in that category and in the movie.

"The worst film nominated for anything may be Beaufort. Ye gods"

have you seen them all?

no, that's why I said MAY.

Let's thank Ruby Dee for saving us from debates about an all-whitish acting slate. (also, Denzel shd be slapped more often)

xpost
All of them apart from Norbit and Transformers I'd guess.

I'm seeing the German foreign nominee this week, I hope it doesn't blow.

-- Dr Morbius, Tuesday, January 22, 2008 3:13 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

counterfeiters? it's.... ok.

well, i can see worse movies than Boufort on that list.

The Counterfeiters is the only one of the foreign noms I've seen. It's pretty good, not amazing, no. It's Austrian, not German, I think.

When I saw Into The Wild I was convinced Hal Holbrook would win, but the film's general snubbing has made me think Sean Penn isn't as matey with the Academy as I'd imagined, which doesn't help HH's cause. Still, him or Casey Affleck, I think.

xp: did you see Beaufort? I've seen more eventful junior-high filmstrips.

yeah, i did.
it's not a great movie,(there were much better Israeli films this year ) but it's not the worse on that list.

What is the worst?

havent seen them all to decide, but from what i did see "american gangster" imo

I was going to say 300, but it wasn't nominated for anything.

The Kite Runner is the worst of what I've seen.

Looking over this list, considering how unexcited I am about the stuff I haven't seen ... an excellent year to have a non-show. (Especially if Julie Christie doesn't win.)

Holbrook is the one I'd be bummed not to see ascend the stairs, et al.

Too bad I missed the Terence Davies discussion (Eric and Morbs both wrong, of course).

What, it's just somewhere in the middle?

It's bad enough that Kite Runner is in best score over There Will Be Blood, but the way-overstated score to La Vie en Rose was one of the things I liked best about that film.

I was on the Film Comment train for that one: it's a great adaptation, and I'm a big Wharton guy. GA transcended her miscasting.

I was arguing FOR Mirth upthread, tho.

(well, I wasn't really arguing, but throwing snipey cherry bombs at Merchant-Ivory)

and Maurice is just awful; to be fair, so's the book.

I don't understand how the song from Once is even eligible. I just listened to an interview with Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova and they said that they originally wrote it for a Czech film called Beauty in Trouble, then released it on albums by both the Swell Season (their recording project) and the Frames before Once even came out. I suppose Once could've been filmed before the recordings were made, but it seems like they intended it for another film, which is what made "Come What May" (from Moulin Rouge!) ineligible (it was originally intended for Romeo + Juliet).

EDDIE VEDDER WUZ ROBBED

xp

"I Just Called to Say I Love You" wasn't written for its film either; a friend of mine quit the music branch when it was nominated...

The music branch doesn't know what the hell they're doing, frankly (he said, knowingly opening the door for Morbs to bring up those two hip-hop awards).

oh I guess the Ved didn't write Hard Sun, well fuck

I still have never figured out how that Crash song was eligible, either. I thought I had seen it was on a CD as much as a year before the movie came out.

I'm kind of glad that Into the Wild didn't do as well as most had predicted. All the SAG nominations actually made me more interested in seeing the film, but it's nice when they aren't perfect predictors of Oscar nods. Before SAG, Hal Holbrook was the only name associated with the film who was meriting Oscar discussion.

since you haven't seen it, jmc, go to hell.

I don't remember a hiphop Oscar besides Three Six Mafia (andtwat luvs em -- enuf said). I liked hiphop when it was, y'know, good (1978-89ish).

EDDIE VEDDER WUZ ROBBED

-- da croupier, Tuesday, January 22, 2008 11:17 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

I'd say that if the best song on that soundtrack wasn't a cover and ineligible for the nod.

haha xpost what you just said

Eminem was marginally hip-hop too

so now that Juno is a big hit, should we expect Page to win over Christie and Cotillard?

now it's a real possibility. That, and all news media doing specials like "Good Morning, America"'s thing on "The Consequences of Teen Pregnancy."

The other nomination for Into the Wild was fairly justified too. Not necessarily because the pace of the film was so hot, but because it kept many of the stereotypically Oscary-pretty shots from ever registering as such.

Eminem's "Lose Yourself" won, Morbs.

Also, I just said I really want to see Into the Wild! My happiness at its failure has nothing to do with its worth as a film and everything to do with the depressing predictability of guild awards on the Oscars.

From AP:

North American box-office performance as of Sunday for Oscar best-picture nominees:
-- "Atonement," Focus Features, seven nominations, released December, $31.8 million.
-- "Juno," Fox Searchlight, four nominations, released December, $85.3 million.
-- "Michael Clayton," Warner Bros., seven nominations, released October, $39.3 million.
-- "No Country for Old Men," Miramax, eight nominations, released November, $48.6 million.
-- "There Will Be Blood," Paramount Vantage, eight nominations, released December, $8.7 million.

so now that Juno is a big hit, should we expect Page to win over Christie and Cotillard?

It just might happen. The voters have a thing for young nominees in the best actress category.

young nominees, not winners.

xp: thou pitiable awards nerd.

look who's talking

Sorry, still bitter about Gwyneth winning for Shakespeare in Love.xp

Up until 10 years ago, the biggest hit in the category usually didn't win Best Picture.

nrq, fuck you.

didn't Crash have the lowest b.o. of the nominees last year?
xp

it had plenty of b.o.

No wai. Capote and Good Night, et al surely made less.

xpost hahahahahaha

Brokeback Mountain was by far the biggest in hit of the '05 noms.

*biggest hit

Ellen Page is in an awkward stage between "America's Little Dumplin" and "HEY SEXY!" so I dunno if she'll get one this time.

four screenwriter nods and a lack of "yeah right" hotties of the Jennifer Connelly type, this may be Oscar's Year Of The Woman by default.

hottie repping goes to orig script stripper this year.

surf's up?

Yeah, has Morbs weighed in on that yet?

what have you guys seen it or something?

I'm assuming Surf's Up is not as good as The Simpsons Movie. There Will Be Blood is not as good as The Simpsons Movie.

On the bright side, that crap Lumet film got shut out, yes?

hurray for that.

boo to that.

and that simpsons movie was shit. seriously morbz if that's what you rep for i gotta wonder.

i mean if you're going to be a snob you might as well exercise some QC yourself

I liked "that crap Lumet film" but it wasn't really going to get anything, anyway. Director field too crowded for Lumet to get a lifetime-achievement nod.

I am praying for persepolis to win.

xp: might as well stay on I Love Baseball is more like it.

The Simpsons Movie was OK, but it was no Spirited Away or Triplets of Belville.

ya if persepolis takes it over the vermin movie i'd be really happy

I have to presume the director category wasn't crowded at all if Reitman got in there.

I kinda thought Tim Burton might get that spot.

It's also odd since so much of the press for Juno was all about Cody'n'Page, Reitman rarely present.

yeah I was surprised at that too. but, y'know, dynasties and all.

Reitman is a "legacy" nominee. xp

I was initially surprised that Reitman squeezed in ahead of Penn or even Cronenberg, but then last year's cutesy-poo directors for the family van movie got nominated, right?

They did not.

I'm just saying Lumet had to compete with Penn, Wright, Cronenberg, and Burton for that #6 slot.

I don't think Cronenberg was even in the running.

yes, but I still would've thought he had a better shot than Junior Ghostbuster.

the Academy's love for actors who directors made me think Penn had a real shot even if his movie wasn't nominated.

Of course Cronenberg was in the running! I figure all those old school goofballs who stuck around long enough to make some high-budget shit are in the running if they haven't won yet.

the Academy's love for actors who directors made me think Penn had a real shot even if his movie wasn't nominated.

dude I even though Ben Affleck could have the "wtf?" slot this year.

ya easy

dude already has a script oscar

or in a better world, Sarah Polley

she got a script nom.

or in a better world, apichatpong weerasethakul. surprise dark horse sweep!!!

I liked Affleck's movie better than Weerasethakul's (you can write me off completely now)

the thing is that Ivan Reitman has never been nominated for an Oscar (and of his films I think only Ghostbusters and Dave have gotten minor nominations), so it's not like Jason Reitman has some Sofia Coppola-type Oscar legacy here.

Affleck's movie had some huge problems in the third act but it was way way better than anything directed by Ben Affleck has any right to be. I thought that might marvel enough voters.

x-post I assumed the legacy comments re: reitman were ironic cracks.

LOL

In a world where Judd Apatow is a kingmaker...

And the winner is...Jimmy Ramis!

PT Anderson: legacy from the ABC promo narrator/Ghoulardi

Maybe Gerry Abrams can make some Oscar magic happen for Cloverfield next year.

I still have no idea why I should know who JJ Abrams is

hey don't underestimate the Academy's need to make up for snubbing Twins.

I liked Affleck's movie better than Weerasethakul's (you can write me off completely now)

-- Dr Morbius, Tuesday, January 22, 2008 5:13 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

always full of surprises this guy!

Gone Baby Gone was pretty good. I liked it about as much as There Will Be Blood.

Picking Slant's "deserves to win" won't be too difficult this year, not like two years ago when I had to strongarm some Munich citations away from Good Night, et al.

have we talked about how lame michael clayton for best pic is??

Eric, where do you stand on Away from Her?

omg, i just realized ANOTHER friends' movie is nommed in the same category!

Who to root for?

I stand on "haven't seen it" on Away from Her. I also stand on the "Michael Clayton is lame" side of Michael Clayton being nominated for best picture, though I stop short of "how lame."

these noms are only gonna further seal TWBB and No Country's fate together, like Pulp Fiction/Forrest Gump in '94.

I'll go out on a limb and say No Country will pick up the win, because the Coens have been hanging around for 25 years, engendered some goodwill with Fargo, got a good performance out of Tommy Lee Jones, and put those weighty speeches in the film, which will make the academy feel less guilty about voting for it. TWBB has the final scene working against it, Juno will grate on the elder faction (it won't even have the appeal of little miss sunshine), and Michael Clayton won't stand out (might be projecting the most here), leaving Atonement as the wild card. If Atonement has a flaw it's that it's calculated oscar bait and don't underestimate the academy's ability to feign relevance and pass it over. Plus they've already set precedents for picking the tough film before.

I pretty much agree with that.

so has Day-Lewis got this one sewn up? where's Adrien Brody when you need him?

closest possibility I see to a DDL upset is Depp, but not likely.

I know I'm slightly out of it, but outside of critics, is there buzz at all for There Will Be Blood? I know 'the common person on the street' isn't your oscar voter, but I don't know a single person like that who has seen it, and most of them haven't even heard of it

It's in 130 theaters, wait til it expands.

And no, people won't like it. DDL may be its only win.

Yeah, I was going to say, TWBB has more working against it than just the ending.

actually I'm wrong -- it went to 389 theaters this week; $8000 per screen, which is healthy. It'll do well this weekend, then may decline steadily.

Boner decision of them all reveals its sheer lameness now: There Will Be Blood was shunted aside for ... fucking The Kite Runner?!

-- Eric H., Tuesday, 22 January 2008 14:19 (5 hours ago) Link

(in score, I mean)

-- Eric H., Tuesday, 22 January 2008 14:19 (5 hours ago) Link

It wasn't eligible. See this: http://www.variety.com/blog/890000489/post/370020437.html

atonement's director didn't get a nomination despite the money tracking shot so i can't really see it winning.

I don't see it winning, but Driving Miss Daisy won and Bruce Beresford wasn't nominated (only time I think)

Neither Blanchett nomination has a shot in hell.

And he can tell w/out having seen I'm Not There, so you know it's true.

(tho I do think she goes 0/2)

really? then who wins sup.?

DMD is the only time since 1932. Neither Grand Hotel nor Wings had a director nominee.

xp Amy Ryan, probably?

early line (sez me): No Country, Coens (dir & scr), DDL, Cotillard/Christie coinflip, Ryan, Bardem, Diablo Cody.

To clarify, the boner decision I was talking about was to declare it ineligible.

so is Roger Deakins' odds reduced by two nominations?

they might be; those who know who Deakins is seem more impressed by his work on Jesse James than No Country

that could possibly end up the token Diving Bell win?

I'd put Elswit right behind Deakins, but who knows, if DB&B is real purty...

I'm sort of with you on TWBB crapping out when it comes to actual trophies, aside from DDL, and even him I'm not particularly sure about. (The lack of a sentimental old fart in that category does help him, tho.)

the only one who threatens DDL is Clooney, and he's waaaaay behind.

Nathaniel of The Film Experience on Cate Blanchett, among other things:

I haven't yet done the research but I believe The Golden Age is now the worst reviewed movie in decades to receive a lead acting nomination.

I'll submit I Am Sam.

i think 'charlie wilson's war' shoulda got a screenplay nod; i'm not blind to 'twbb''s merits, but in terms of story construction, dialogue, etc, it's a d-.

You're joking, right?

Shame Paul Dano wasn't nominated, tho. His performance matches and maybe eclipses DDL's for perversity and "bravery."

ok so i can't find this anywhere and it's pure trivia anyway but: has anyone ever been nominated for both lead AND supporting performances in a single year?

i mean, before blanchett this year

plenty of times: Fay Bainter, Barry Fitzgerald, Jessica Lange, Sigourney Weaver, Emma Thompson, Holly Hunter, and Jamie Foxx.

Al Pacino too.

it used to mean that you automatically got one, but that's changed.

I'll go out on a limb and say No Country will pick up the win

yeah i don't think that's out on a limb at all. add to all the other things you said that no country is a much less weird movie than twbb.

oop, found an official list. counting blanchett, there's been eleven so far (not listed yet: julianne moore and teresa wright)

weird that it's 8 women and 3 men.

I understand Cate Blanchett is the first woman to get nominated a second time for playing the same role. (Some men have done it before ... Pacino, Crosby, Newman.)

You're joking, right?

-- jaymc, Wednesday, 23 January 2008 03:11 (4 hours ago) Link

no, why would i be? TWBB's story is as clunky as fuck; its most famous dialogue scene is sophomoric 'rich old man in the castle' stuff. CWW belongs to the 1930s but it's manifestly a better screenplay (from an oscar point of view) (but also from mine).

Yeah, but D-? The reservations have moved into straight up backlash, haven't they?

i think 'charlie wilson's war' shoulda got a screenplay nod

You would.

Paul Dano woulda been a contender for worst nominated performance this year, instead we'll have to settle for...?

its most famous dialogue scene is sophomoric 'rich old man in the castle'

Most famous (sic) to a bunch of dicks on the internet.

(x-post) Cate Blanchett as Bob Dylan, no doubt

Armond, is that you?

I thought Dano was great. He deserves props just for being able to stand up to Day-Lewis' nuttiness (as the other actor playing Eli could not).

Dano was screamy. Not the entire film, but he was desperate for attention, trying to impress us or dd-l with his Acting. I did like the film more the second time, but Dano's preacher was the wrong foil for Plainview.

Yeah, but D-? The reservations have moved into straight up backlash, haven't they?

-- Eric H., Wednesday, January 23, 2008 1:10 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Link

yeah, the hype has gotten to me. i'll dial it down once everybody else has realized they went too far dickriding pta on this one.

weird that it's 8 women and 3 men.

-- Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, January 22, 2008 10:29 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

Not that weird when you consider that the Best Actress category is one that frequently needs to be filled out. That's why you get no-name actresses in foreign-language films (Marion Cotillard, Catalina Sandina Moreno, Fernanda Montenegro), actresses in small films no one saw (Annette Bening in Being Julia, Janet McTeer in Tumbleweeds), and automatic nominations every time Meryl Streep or Judi Dench appear on screen.

...and now Cate Blanchett.

did elizabeth part deux get *any* good reviews? it's a real anomaly.

Thank you for providing the plausible explanation I was fishing for with that "weird" comment.

I bleev Roeper & Wilonsky got into a laffing argument about whether it was good/bad enough to see. One went Thumbs Up.

DDL and Julie Christie continue their inevitable march to Oscars?

And, arguably, Bardem. Only supporting actress seems to have some semblance of a contest, though I don't really know why anyone thinks anyone other than Ryan or now Dee will win. No way Blanchett's winning another already.

Supporting Actress is typically the only competitive category anyway.

I'm not that familiar with Oscar nomination rules, can someone explain me how French films like The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Persepolis get nommed in other categories, while there's also a category called "Best Foreign Film"? What does "foreign" mean exactly?

I remember reading from somewhere that Persepolis was supposed to France's candidate for best foreign film, it's kinda sad that it ended in the animation category, because even if it'll win, I doubt this is gonna raise its profile much.

The award is for best film in a foreign (ie. not English) language. It doesn't preclude films from being nominated in other categories.

Well what's the point of having such a category at all, then? And why do foreign films so rarely get nommed in other categories?

You know the reason. Cultural myopia.

actually, the way the rules work currently, the best foreign film category would more accurately be called "best film submitted as the sole candidate from each among all the nations in the world"

which is sort of nice, since it allows all the other nations of the world feel what America feels when Oscar ignores most of their best films and focuses on award-bait.

I don't think the other nations of the world needed any help with that.

more like "best film submitted as the sole candidate from each among what Oscar determines to be nations of the world" re disqualification of Lust, Caution and that snubbing of 4 months, 3 weeks, etc. is just unforgivable.

Not having seen Lars and the Real Girl, I wonder what it's a "Capra knockoff" of?

http://www.slantmagazine.com/blog/default.asp?category=2

(cuz Capra had nothing to do with Harvey, which is what I connect it with)

I haven't seen it either, but most critics seemed to talk about the combination of whimsy and community spirit.

is Lionel Barrymore in it?

Results 1 - 10 of about 621 for "lars and the real girl" capra. (0.28 seconds)

... less than I presumed, actually.

Alright, totally fair, I guess I hadn't read any reviews past the first paragraph.

If you noticed, Ledger won the SAG In Memoriam montage over Deborah Kerr. (No Bergman or Antonioni factor there.)

Jeff Wells:

"Add Picturehouse to the folks who blew off SAG DVD mailings, to their detriment," a journalist friend writes. "A friend and guild member is banking on Julie Christie winning over Marion Cotillard due to the fact that folks got discs of Away From Her but not La Vie en Rose."

how likely is it that Hillary voters stole Juno screeners?

Ledger won the SAG In Memoriam montage over Deborah Kerr.

yeah but i think that was mostly because it was already finished and they just had to tack him on at the end. at least that's how it felt.

Current odds

Best Picture
No Country for Old Men: 2 - 5
There Will Be Blood: 7 - 2
Atonement: 13 - 2
Juno: 12 - 1
Michael Clayton: 28 - 1

Actor
Daniel Day Lewis: 1 - 8
Johnny Depp: 8 - 1
George Clooney: 8 - 1
Viggo Mortensen: 18 - 1
Tommy Lee Jones: 33 - 1

Actress
Julie Christie: 1 - 3
Marion Cotillard: 3 - 1
Ellen Page: 13 - 2
Cate Blanchett: 25 - 1
Laura Linney: 25 - 1

Fucking Juno...

according to whom?

I can't read "odds." Translate.

they are listed in order of supposed probability

Daniel Day Lewis: 1 - 8

^^this means like, upset of the century if he loses

I'd have guessed that Juno's odds would be better than that!

Paddy Power

e.g. DDL at 1-8 means bet $8 get back your stake plus $1, Johnny Depp at 8-1 means bet $1 and get back your stake plus $8.

at these odds I'd place small bets on Atonement, Clooney and Ellen Page

Decimal odds available if you prefer those: http://www.paddypower.com/bet?action=go_type&category=SPECIALS&disp_cat_id=&ev_class_id=69&ev_type_id=1720&ev_oc_grp_ids=6774&bir_index=

Maybe I'm out of the loop, but I find it staggering that Juno has better odds than Michael Clayton for best picture. Everyone I spoke to at Sundance hated it.

Juno is finding a lot of traction in middle America it seems.

Juno is this year's American Beauty.

michael clayton's problem is that anyone who'd vote for it probably liked there will be blood or no country better

as opposed to juno who's a real outlier there

I'm psyched for Diablo Cody's stilted sub-Heckerling project for HBO.

I find it staggering that Juno has better odds than Michael Clayton for best picture

Michael Clayton got a lot of very good reviews but few critics really *loved* it (except for Roeper, lol), and for a George Clooney film, it didn't make much impact at the box office: only $44 million.

Juno, on the other hand, has made over $100 million, and there's been nothing but hype and press surrounding it since its release. Even the soundtrack hit #1 a couple of weeks ago.

Also, yeah, J0rdan S. OTM.

Maybe I'm out of the loop, but I find it staggering that Juno has better odds than Michael Clayton for best picture. Everyone I spoke to at Sundance hated it.

But it's a huge hit!

jaymc otm

Interesting. I had no idea. We've had none of that press over here in the UK at all. I was taken to see it in NY last week having never even heard of it.

I really hope Clayton gets best original screenplay and not Juno. There are good bits and bad bits to Juno but its screenplay is particularly terrible.

god could Diablo Cody be more boring? (sorry.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIH13_KUlaI

It's Juno's only competition, and probably the only award it might win.

(xpost)

Caek - Juno's not out here yet, but I suspect it'll gain similiar buzz here. A lot of people really love it.

I think Juno might well be Academy voters' favourite film on the list, but I suspect many of them will feel it somehow isn't the best film all the same.

I mentioned I'd seen it (and hated it) to my usual UK cinema-going buddy when I got back and she was surprised as she'd really been looking forward to it, so maybe you're right about the buzz.

I had no idea it's done $100M which makes my statement about "traction in middle america" all the more stupid. But yeah caek, $100M is blockbuster, way beyond "buzz"

juno is getting a lot of buzz in the uk.

I guess I am out of the loop then. Living out of a suitcase for three weeks will do that.

I think it is sort of neat that the packaging and theatrical screening of the two sets of nominated short films is now sort of an annual thing. This year's animated slate is pretty good.

especially the one by those people s1ocki knows

Ebert lays down the gauntlet for Best Actress:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080209/OSCARS/872515753

List of BAFTA winners:

The Academy fellowship - Anthony Hopkins
Outstanding British contributuion to cinema - Barry Wilkinson

Best film - Atonement (Tim Bevan/Eric Fellner/Paul Webster)

Best British film - This is England (Mark Herbert/Shane Meadows)

The Carl Foreman award for special achievement - Matt Greenhalgh (Writer) Control

Director - No Country for Old Men (Joel Coen/Ethan Coen)

Original screenplay - Juno (Diablo Cody)

Adapted screenplay - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Ronald Harwood)

Film not in the English language - The Lives of Others (Quirin Berg/Max Wiedemann/Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)

Animated film - Ratatouille (Brad Bird)

Leading actor - Daniel Day Lewis (There Will be Blood)

Leading actress - Marion Cotillard (La Vie en Rose)

Supporting actor- Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men)

Supporting actress - Tilda Swinton (Michael Clayton)

Music - La Vie en Rose (Christopher Gunning)

Cinematography - No Country for Old Men (Roger Deakins)

Editing - The Bourne Ultimatum (Christopher Rouse)

Production design - Atonement (Sarah Greenwood/Katie Spencer)

Costume design - La Vie en Rose (Marit Allen)

Sound - The Bourne Ultimatum (Kirk Francis/Scott Millan/David Parker/Karen Baker Landers/Per Hallberg)

Special visual effects - The Golden Compass (Michael Fink/Bill Westenhofer/Ben Morris/Trevor Wood)

Make-up & hair - La Vie en Rose (Jan Archibald/Didier Lavergne)

Short animation - The Pearce Sisters (Jo Allen/Luis Cook)

Short film - Dog Altogether (Diarmid Scrimshaw/Paddy Considine)

The Orange rising star award (voted by the public) - Shia Laboeuf

it's weird, i think bardem deserves the win, or at least the nom, even though i'm not a fan of the role-in-the-movie. it'd be right for a straight-up horror film like 'wolf creek'.

Presumably there is a BAFTA regulation that Best Film cannot also win Best British Film?

Original screenplay - Juno (Diablo Cody)

:(((((. Was pleased to hear Steven Merchant give this film some very back-handed faint praise on Radio 6 yesterday.

Presumably there is a BAFTA regulation that Best Film cannot also win Best British Film?

I wondered about that, since Atonement was nominated in that category too. So I was very surprised when it won for best film.

I watched most of the BAFTAs, and larfed at the This Is England/ Atonement thing. And it was nice they gave Cuba Gooding Jr something to do; someone has to.

This is detrius tho, not pregame, as no one in Hollywood gives a fuck what the Brits think.

Best Brit film decided by a seperate jury; Best Film descided by Academy as a whole. According to Kermode just now.

xpost

Maybe no-one in Hollywood cares but the 900 (~15%) or so of BAFTA members who could vote in the Oscars might.

I do expect Cotillard's babeness to prevail at the Oscars. Tho the laffable clip at SAG of her screaming "MARCEL! MARCEL!" makes me wary of seeing that film even for free.

Don't even bother.

at least the BAFTA obit clips had CHARLES LANE!

and if anyone finds a pic of Tilda Swinton's dress, plz post...

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44417000/jpg/_44417818_aa1ce03c-cb44-4160-9169-5bb765563054.jpg

^^^ not as bad as Anne-Marie Duff...

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44417000/jpg/_44417819_0b474006-ab68-4a38-b6a4-0b15fe204866.jpg

Or Brooke "Diablo" Cody's Betty Rubble ensemble.

Best moment was the amateur-filmmaker winner of the '60 Minutes of Fame' category not bothering to turn up.

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/02_02/TildaMonsonS1002_468x683.jpg

presenters:

Alan Arkin, Jennifer Hudson, Helen Mirren, Forest Whitaker, Amy Adams, Jessica Alba, Cate Blanchett, Josh Brolin, Steve Carell, George Clooney, Penelope Cruz, Miley Cyrus, Patrick Dempsey, Cameron Diaz, Colin Farrell, Harrison Ford, Jennifer Garner, Tom Hanks, Anne Hathaway, Katherine Heigl, Jonah Hill, Dwayne Johnson, Nicole Kidman, James McAvoy, Queen Latifah, Seth Rogen, Martin Scorsese, Hilary Swank, John Travolta, Denzel Washington and Renee Zellweger.

Seth Rogen, Martin Scorsese

together, pls.

i will lol my ass off if juno wins anything.

What’s the consensus on Achievement in Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Makeup, Original Score, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, and Visual Effects?

Oh, and Best Foreign Language?

I’m clueless on all of these.

This might be helpful: http://www.moviecitynews.com/awards/2008/gurus_080123b.html

Foreign: The Counterfeiters is set in a concentration camp

Academy Award® nominees, presenters and performers will be greeted on Oscar’s red carpet on Sunday, February 24, by film historian, television host and Hollywood Reporter columnist Robert Osborne, Academy President Sid Ganis announced today. Red carpet guest arrivals are expected to begin at approximately 3 p.m. PT and conclude at the start of the Oscar® telecast at 5 p.m. PT.

“Being on the red carpet is unlike anything else,” said Ganis. “Robert is calm, collected and cordial as he welcomes our guests. He’s superb! He adds to the excitement and glamour of the red carpet.”

Osborne’s red carpet celebrity chats will be audible to the other arriving guests as well as to the bleacher fans on the opposite side of the carpet. It will be his third stint on the red carpet for the Academy.

i have to tick off 'michael clayton', but atm i'm backing 'atonement' ftw. never thought it would end up this way.

partly out of spite toward TWBB's hillary-style Inevitability.

can we clear up any other plot points for you?

TWBB is not winning Best Picture.

Who will win the coveted final slot in "Memorial" montage? Will it be Bergman, Antonioni, or Ledger?

haha

btw, if TWBB had been released in March and Zodiac in December, who else thinks their award fortunes wd be somewhat reversed?

Mike D'Angelo in Esquire calls Day-Lewis OVERACTOR OF THE YEAR, but predictably means it as a compliment.

Grisso, it depends if they go with Cinephilia or Tabloid.

Have we forgotten Anna Nicole so soon?

NRQ, Clayton is not worth your time. I say that confidently even knowing we agree on movies about 5 percent of the time.

My rankings of the BP nominees' worth (no surprises this year):

No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton

I like Taxi to the Dark Side a bit more than No End in Sight

I think the tiebreaker in Oscar pools should be how many times "milkshake" is uttered. (If Stewart does it more than once, he's Billy Crystal.)

Just think, a Best Picture nomination would've gotten Eric to eyeball Sweeney Todd, I'm Not There and Away from Her!

I did see Sweeney Todd, but only because Stephen Sondheim >>>>>>>> Bob Dylan.

^disloyal Minnesotan^

And Prince >>>>>>>> either of them.

Mike D'Angelo in Esquire the New York Press calls Day-Lewis OVERACTOR OF THE YEAR, but predictably means it as a compliment.

*Armond White

Everyone I meet who's seen TWBB hates it waaaay more than I do. Cine-literate people throwing around words like "pointless."

I'm not sure what you meant by posting that remark. You LIKE a lot of overacting.

like whose? It depends on the context. I sorta like DDL's, but I sorta don't.

you've praised "big" performances before.

his is an incredibly shrinking performance. Even the stills from the "I've abandoned my child" scene just make me laugh.

Insofar as the movie works, he deserves more credit than PTA. I'm inclined to hate Nicholson for making rat faces more than DDL and his milkshakes.

I miss the days of Crash at the Oscars.

And ranking that movie above Brokeback Mountain and Capote on an aesthetic scale just because.

you mad (also, party at Eric's house)

xp: Starting with the emergence of The Jack Persona in Cuckoo's Nest, I don't like Nicholson except when he dials it down or goes full-tilt farcical like Prizzi's Honor or Mars Attacks!

My ranking:

=1. Michael Clayton
=1. TWBB (may change my mind about this. going to see it again right now.)
2. NCFOM
3. Atonement
100. Juno

lol, Peter Travers doing the "milkshake" line

SHOW ME THE MILKSHAKE

YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE MILKSHAKE

I WISH I COULD MILKSHAKE YOU

YOU MAKE ME WANT TO BE A BETTER MILKSHAKE

WHAT THE MILKSHAKE?

NRQ, I am interested in how you rank the best picture nominees.

1 atonement
2 no country
3 twbb
4 juno

i would probably rank no country above atonement under different circumstances (ie were it not for the New Nihilism).

I'm unable to watch the Travers clip, but I did notice in his RS piece that Juno is his "First I loved you, but now I hate you even more cause you are pap that tricked me" flip-flop pick for this year in his predictions

...And also in a previous Oscar piece, he jumped sides regarding the music from Enchanted, which went from "nice stuff" to "Sugary Disney pap."

I am saddened by the general lack of love for Michael Clayton

It got exactly the kind of love that gets it Oscar nods.

On this board, I mean.

(Unless we have any Academy members I don't know about)

Ugh, Michael Clayton is the worst. Stylelessness + idiotic content = tensionless middlebrow appeal

ranking out BP nominees can sometimes be an exercise in surprising yourself about your own taste. Last year, I would've ranked Babel (a movie I couldn't really make one solid argument on its behalf) in second, though that might just be because I still haven't seen the other half of Clint Eastwood's WWII thing. (First half sucked.)

Michael Clayton is much better than Babel; the former, in its muddled middlebrow way and stunted attempts at suspense, is rather good at nailing corporatespeak in a way that most American films shy away from. I'm thinking of Tony Gilroy's excellent imitations of CEO jargon uttered by Tilda Swinton without winking at the audience, or the video produced by the company she represents.

Mind you, I don't think it's a great film, but it's got more going on than a summary rejection would suggest.

George Clooney tearing up while petting horses might be the most unbelievable duty asked of an actor since Heath Ledger punched a wall in BBM.

Yah but that's like a textbook example of a fringe benefit and not at all what the movie's real focus is. If they'd made a movie about legalese and backstabbing corporate opportunism without the lame thriller trappings (and still kept Elswit's very good cinematography), I'd probably be into it as well in a Shattered Glass sort of way.

Right. I said at the time that I wish the whole movie had been about Tilda Swinton's quiet compromises and Sydney Pollack reaction shots. But American films often focus on the wrong characters (I wish The Departed had concentrated on Mark Wahlberg and Martin Sheen).

Atonement fumbles its meta thing (ie, its reason for being) so badly it does NOT rise to the level of even The English Patient, Out of Africa etc.

Ugh, Michael Clayton is the worst. Stylelessness + idiotic content = tensionless middlebrow appeal

-- Eric H., Wednesday, 20 February 2008 01:32 (13 hours ago) Bookmark Link

What does "middlebrow" mean here? Is stylelessness and idiotic content something known to be particularly appealing to university-educated busy people who aren't that into film?

Stephanie Zancharek has no patience for DDL's mannerisms in There Will Be Blood:

The tragedy of Day-Lewis' performance in "There Will Be Blood" is that it defies the naturalism that made him a great actor -- and I use the word "great" unequivocally -- in the first place, as if he'd decided that naturalism is boring, that it no longer presents a challenge for him. Day-Lewis' Daniel Plainview is of a piece with Bill the Butcher, the character he played in Martin Scorsese's 2002 epic mess "Gangs of New York." Both performances are stuffed with exaggerated mannerisms and gimmickry: Day-Lewis struts through "Gangs" like a circus stilt-walker, as if, by design, he wants to seem larger than life. In both roles, he favors tortured locutions over simple declarativeness -- his "Gangs" accent is a thick, sludgy, semi-invented Noo Yawkese, probably calculated to suggest the savagery, the unvarnished manners, of a thug in old New York.

But do those choices tell us anything specific, anything that would otherwise be unknowable, about the inner lives of these characters? When I think of Daniel Plainvew and Bill the Butcher, I see technique, a set of artful schematics. When I think of the scruffy blond scrubber, Johnny, in "My Beautiful Laundrette" (1985), or the wheelchair-bound artist and writer Christy Brown in "My Left Foot" (1989), or the unjustly imprisoned Gerry Conlan in "In the Name of the Father" (1993), or Danny Flynn, the fighter with an IRA past in "The Boxer" (1997), I see people who live on the screen with so much clarity and vitality that the last thing I'm thinking of are the actorish smoke and mirrors it may have taken to put them there. In those performances -- and in numerous others, like those in "The Age of Innocence" (1993), "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1988) and, most recently, "The Ballad of Jack and Rose" (2005), directed by Day-Lewis' wife, Rebecca Miller -- Day-Lewis cuts to the truth of his characters' lives by challenging us. There's no challenge in Daniel Plainview: No moment where we fear, against our better judgment, that we might have some confusing, conflicting emotions for him.

ie, tailormade for gold statues. With some fava beans and a nice chianti.

Middlebrow meaning lack of aspirations to be anything other than tasteful.

I know it's easier to bash films people are talking about than it is to give a shit one way or the other about movies no one cares about these days, but Morbs, have you tried to actually watch Out of Africa lately? What a nothing film that one is. I'd rather was Michael Clayton 10 times in a row.

well, of course I haven't. I wouldn't even try to watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon today.

... and y'know, as Isak Dinesen films go, Babette's Feast > Out of Africa. At least then.

How exactly did Cate Blanchett get restored to favorite in Supp Actress? I assumed her chances tanked with (the entirely foreseeable)mainstream rejection of I'm Not there, but most everyone's picking her ro "repeat." Is she the new Dianne Wiest/Jason Robards?

she'll play Paul Muni in an upcoming biopic.

Chris Orr's picks.

Who ought to win: Joel and Ethan Coen. (If not for the disastrous finale of There Will Be Blood, I might go the other way on this.)

Amy Ryan is on The Wire?

Weird, I thought a lot more people thought the finale to No Country was disastrous than Blood's.

Of course, if we were going strictly by the last minutes of every film, then give the award to Atonement.

Hey, Holbrook fans: didjda read this EW interview? It's cute.

I don't see Blood winning both cinematog & a.d. (or maybe either), but otherwise I think tehse match mine:

http://www.thefilmexperience.net/Awards/2007/tally.html

Yeah, Amy Ryan is in season 2 and back in a few season 4 eps, for sure (can't remember if she showed up in between).

(I'm not watching season 5 yet but it seems like she'd have a pretty big role?)

For the record, I'm still seeing supporting actress as a Dee/Ryan showdown, but grudgingly admit that Clayton prolly has to win something and Swinton's category is the softest.

most yielding

I see Ed is going Swinton... haha, I'm Not There is "possibly more obnoxious than American Gangster," that guy is getting a talking-to when I finally meet him...

I'm pretty sure I remember him saying that movie would've been on his list of "worsts" if they would have done them this year.

YES. Mr. 29 Palms!

I hated that one too.

anyone read EW's usual interviews with anonymous insider voters? Not a single one of the four voted for Christie or Blanchett.

Yeah, and all six voted for Bardem too, so :( for Holbrook.

i'm taking holbrook (mostly because i don't want bardem to win, i haven't even seen into the wild), and blanchett for similarly rah-rah reasons.

well, are these individuals reliable bellwethers? Like, the Baldwin brothers?

Holbrook's nomination is honor enough; before this role he'd become to me exactly what he was when I was 7 years old: Mark Twain (not even Deep Throat).

Can't see the Academy going Cotillard/Cate; do they want bio-melodramas or freewheeling meditations?

I really don't see lack-of-Dylan-fandom being the explanation for ppl who dislike/hate INT; I mostly liked Velvet Goldmine and never really got (retrospectively) the faggy glam thing...

Gad, I'd no idea Holbrook was in "Evening Shade."

(I'm not watching season 5 yet but it seems like she'd have a pretty big role?)

not really, she's just in the background. underutilized (i love her), but the wire has so many good people that everybody ends up underutilized.

help me fill out my pool ballot. sound editing/mixing? should i just assume these are going to no country?

consensus seems to be that Bourne may well win one of those.

(also see Slant & FilmExperience links above)

foreign language? i haven't seen any of these. counterfeiters has some buzz i guess.

don't bet vs Nazis

i guess it helps that it's austrian, so they don't have to give it to two german films in a row.

ok i went ahead and put bardem. sigh. (will be kicking myself if hh pulls it out.) sticking with cate, though, on general principles.

shitload of "best oscars ever" guff in UK press today. will be so glad for it all to be over. wonder if 'semi pro' and 'vantage point' will get a look-in next year. guess not.

A friend insists Cotillard will win, and maybe in another year she might since the role is pure Oscar bait (playing a real person, she cries, screams, lunges across the room).

(It will be Dee and not Swinton I mark on my personal pool ballot, btw.)

Not on uk tv?

apparently not! i think it might be on sky?

I can only seem to find "red carpet coverage" on E, which we don't get.

weird

it is really. guess the beeb was priced out, and to be fair no-one watches it anyway -- snug in that popular 2am on monday morning slot.

You'd think someone would at least pick it up to show Monday night, like itv(?) did w the grammys. I'd watch it.

i searched radiotimes.com for 'oscar' and 'academy' and got jack.

it's on sky premier pay-for-view and sky one tomorrow night. really looking forward to the clips on the jonathan ross show*

isn't it on Sky Movies? It was last year.

uh, xpost.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/02/23/movies/20080223_REVENUE_GRAPHIC.html

mmm chocolate swirl!

Since (soon)this is no longer pre-game, shouldn't there be a show/postmortem thread?

OSCARTOPSY 2008

It's on Sky Movies right now.

OK, I laughed like a fool over Jon Stewart's Olympia Dukakis gag.

Badolf Titler. Hilarious, Jon. Really. Who's writing these jokes, Nelson Muntz?

I hope that entire room gets somehow blown to smithereens and only Javier Bardem is somehow spared

Rolling CHALLENGING OPINIONS thread 2008

I can't bring myself to start a new thread in October, but it has begun:

http://weblogs.variety.com/thompsononhollywood/2008/10/oscar-watch-wal.html