Oscar Nom Day!
Good morning children! Today is one of my favorite days of the year -- Oscar Nomination Day! The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the 80th Academy Awards this morning in Los Angeles, and I must say I am more pleased with their selections than usual. I will discuss my personal quibbles below, but on the whole, I think this is very representative of the sterling body of work done in American film this year. Now, without further ado...
First, the tally. No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood lead the pack, as it should be, with eight nominations apiece. Close behind are Atonement and Michael Clayton, each with seven. I am thrilled to see Michael Clayton have such a strong showing, as I felt it was very overlooked by critics and audiences. Next is Ratatouille with five nominations, followed by The Diving Bell And The Butterfly and Juno with four each. The Bourne Ultimatum, Enchanted, Into The Wild, La Vie En Rose, Sweeney Todd and Transformers each walked off with three. With two, we have 3:10 To Yuma, American Gangster, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, Away From Her, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Golden Compass, Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End and The Savages. Finally, with one each, we have Across The Universe, August Rush, Charlie Wilson's War, Eastern Promises, Gone Baby Gone, I'm Not There, In The Valley Of Elah, Lars And The Real Girl, Norbit, Once, Persepolis and Surf's Up.
Gripes? They are few. There is some weirdness in the nominating rules that disqualified a lot of material from various categories for no good reason (I'm looking at you, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Score.) I think it's a damn shame that the studio forced the release of Zodiac last March instead of this past fall. If it had come out more recently, I think it would have made a strong showing instead of getting shut out entirely. No love for Rescue Dawn, either, but that's no surprise -- Herzog is invisible to the Academy. I wish David Cronenberg had gotten a nod for directing Eastern Promises, but I'm kind of a Cronenberg junkie, and at least Viggo finally got the nomination he so richly deserves. Beowulf should have gotten nominated for Best Animated Feature, but I don't think the Academy knows how to deal with motion-capture yet, and the category is always such a crapshoot anyway. Spider-Man 3 should have gotten nominated for Visual Effects, but it sucked, so I'm not really too upset. Atonement looked dull as dirt to me and I'm flabbergasted it made such an impression on the Academy, but then again, I didn't see it, so perhaps I should not judge. Otherwise...like I said, I'm really pleased. The work nominated here is so strong, in fact, that I'm not going to stand quite so solidly behind my predictions as I normally do. I think attention and praise are going to be split so evenly between a lot of these films that it will be very difficult to make an accurate forecast. That will not, of course, stop me from trying.
I will be skipping Best Short Film, Live Action, Best Short Film, Animated, and Best Documentary, Short Subject.
Best Documentary, Features
Should Win: The King Of Kong or In The Shadow Of The Moon, but neither of them got nominated, so...
Will Win: Sicko, because I've never even heard of any of the other nominees. Then again, they may not want to give Michael Moore any further validation.
Best Foreign Language Film
Should Win: 4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, La Vie En Rose or Persepolis, but again, none of them were nominated.
Will Win: Mongol, a Genghis Khan bio, because none of the others have made any impression on anyone outside their country of origin.
Best Animated Feature Film
Should Win: Persepolis, an adaptation of the heartbreaking graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi about an outspoken girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.
Will Win: Ratatouille, because Cars got passed over last year for Happy Feet, and not enough of the voters will have seen Persepolis.
Best Achievement in Visual Effects
Should and Will Win: Transformers, because giant fighting robots have never looked so good. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End could upset here, although Dead Man's Chest took it last year, so maybe not.
Best Achievement in Sound Editing
Should Win: The Bourne Ultimatum
Will Win: Ratatouille
Best Achievement in Sound
Should and Will Win: No Country For Old Men
Best Original Song
Should and Will Win: "Falling Slowly", from Once, because everyone loved it and it didn't get nominated for anything else.
Best Original Score
Should Win: Jonny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood, which was not nominated, thus rendering the category moot so far as I'm concerned.
Will Win: Who cares? ...Okay, Dario Marianelli for Atonement.
Best Achievement in Makeup
Should and Will Win: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. As an aside...Norbit?!?!?!? Norbit got nominated for an Oscar?!?!?
Best Achievement in Costume Design
Should Win: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
Will Win: Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Best Achievement in Art Direction
Should Win and Will Win: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
Best Achievement in Editing
Should and Will Win: No Country For Old Men
Best Achievement in Cinematography
Should and Will Win: No Country For Old Men. Possible spoiler: The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford.
Okay, here we go...the ones people actually care about.
Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
Should Win: Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country For Old Men, by a mile. I am annoyed that James Vanderbilt was not nominated for his work on Zodiac, but that's what you get for releasing in March.
Will Win: They're going to give this to the runner-up for Best Picture, so PTA for There Will Be Blood. Christopher Hampton (Atonement) could be the spoiler here, but I certainly hope not.
Best Original Screenplay
Should and Will Win: Diablo Cody, for Juno. I mean, come on, people. Does anyone think she's not going to walk away with this one?
Best Achievement in Directing
Should and Will Win: Ethan and Joel Coen, No Country For Old Men. A million kudos to the Academy for nominating both of them. Also, all praise must go to Paul Thomas Anderson, Tony Gilroy and Jason Reitman, any of whom I would be happy to see win this. Truly an embarrasment of riches this year. Odd that Atonement got a Best Picture nod but there was no nomination for Joe Wright. Also, I am bestowing Pat's Honorary Nomination on David Fincher for Zodiac.
Best Supporting Actress
Should Win: Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton. I hear Amy Ryan was phenomenal, but I didn't see Gone Baby Gone, and I love Tilda, so personal bias wins out.
Will Win: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone. Best Supporting Actress is traditionally one of the hardest awards to predict. They may give it to Ruby Dee for American Gangster as a "Congratulations For Living This Long And Kicking Ass The Whole Time" Award, or Cate Blanchett because she got nominated in two categories and won't win Best Actress, but I'm going with Amy Ryan.
Best Supporting Actor
Should and Will Win: Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men. The only potential spoiler is Hal Holbrook winning the Ruby Dee Longevity Award (see above). Again, I would be happy with any of these five men winning, particularly Bardem and Tom Wilkinson.
Best Actress
Should and Will Win: Ellen Page, Juno. I truly don't think there was a stronger female lead performance this year. If not, Julie Christie will take it. My only fear is that if Page wins, she'll fall into the Hollywood vortex and never be seen again. That would be a shame, for I love her so and want her to be the Jodie Foster of our generation.
Best Actor
Should and Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood, because its technical excellence aside, this movie was all about my boy DDL. That said, any of these five men could walk away from that podium, statue in hand, and I would be happy.
Best Picture
Should and Will Win: No Country For Old Men, but I am wicked happy that Michael Clayton got nominated for Best Picture, because it's the best movie that nobody saw this year. The only way that No Country won't win is if the votes get split with There Will Be Blood, in which case either Juno will win an award it doesn't deserve but I can live with, or Atonement will become this year's Crash and I will storm the Academy's headquarters with a knife in my teeth and hate in my heart.
In 2006, I made 20 predictions, of which 14 were correct (70%). In 2007, I made 20 predictions, of which 13 were correct (65%). This year, I'm making 21 forecasts; let's see if I can bump that percentage back up a little. The Academy Awards will be handed out on February 24th.
First, the tally. No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood lead the pack, as it should be, with eight nominations apiece. Close behind are Atonement and Michael Clayton, each with seven. I am thrilled to see Michael Clayton have such a strong showing, as I felt it was very overlooked by critics and audiences. Next is Ratatouille with five nominations, followed by The Diving Bell And The Butterfly and Juno with four each. The Bourne Ultimatum, Enchanted, Into The Wild, La Vie En Rose, Sweeney Todd and Transformers each walked off with three. With two, we have 3:10 To Yuma, American Gangster, The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, Away From Her, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Golden Compass, Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End and The Savages. Finally, with one each, we have Across The Universe, August Rush, Charlie Wilson's War, Eastern Promises, Gone Baby Gone, I'm Not There, In The Valley Of Elah, Lars And The Real Girl, Norbit, Once, Persepolis and Surf's Up.
Gripes? They are few. There is some weirdness in the nominating rules that disqualified a lot of material from various categories for no good reason (I'm looking at you, Best Foreign Language Film and Best Score.) I think it's a damn shame that the studio forced the release of Zodiac last March instead of this past fall. If it had come out more recently, I think it would have made a strong showing instead of getting shut out entirely. No love for Rescue Dawn, either, but that's no surprise -- Herzog is invisible to the Academy. I wish David Cronenberg had gotten a nod for directing Eastern Promises, but I'm kind of a Cronenberg junkie, and at least Viggo finally got the nomination he so richly deserves. Beowulf should have gotten nominated for Best Animated Feature, but I don't think the Academy knows how to deal with motion-capture yet, and the category is always such a crapshoot anyway. Spider-Man 3 should have gotten nominated for Visual Effects, but it sucked, so I'm not really too upset. Atonement looked dull as dirt to me and I'm flabbergasted it made such an impression on the Academy, but then again, I didn't see it, so perhaps I should not judge. Otherwise...like I said, I'm really pleased. The work nominated here is so strong, in fact, that I'm not going to stand quite so solidly behind my predictions as I normally do. I think attention and praise are going to be split so evenly between a lot of these films that it will be very difficult to make an accurate forecast. That will not, of course, stop me from trying.
I will be skipping Best Short Film, Live Action, Best Short Film, Animated, and Best Documentary, Short Subject.
Best Documentary, Features
Should Win: The King Of Kong or In The Shadow Of The Moon, but neither of them got nominated, so...
Will Win: Sicko, because I've never even heard of any of the other nominees. Then again, they may not want to give Michael Moore any further validation.
Best Foreign Language Film
Should Win: 4 Months, 3 Weeks And 2 Days, The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, La Vie En Rose or Persepolis, but again, none of them were nominated.
Will Win: Mongol, a Genghis Khan bio, because none of the others have made any impression on anyone outside their country of origin.
Best Animated Feature Film
Should Win: Persepolis, an adaptation of the heartbreaking graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi about an outspoken girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution.
Will Win: Ratatouille, because Cars got passed over last year for Happy Feet, and not enough of the voters will have seen Persepolis.
Best Achievement in Visual Effects
Should and Will Win: Transformers, because giant fighting robots have never looked so good. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End could upset here, although Dead Man's Chest took it last year, so maybe not.
Best Achievement in Sound Editing
Should Win: The Bourne Ultimatum
Will Win: Ratatouille
Best Achievement in Sound
Should and Will Win: No Country For Old Men
Best Original Song
Should and Will Win: "Falling Slowly", from Once, because everyone loved it and it didn't get nominated for anything else.
Best Original Score
Should Win: Jonny Greenwood's score for There Will Be Blood, which was not nominated, thus rendering the category moot so far as I'm concerned.
Will Win: Who cares? ...Okay, Dario Marianelli for Atonement.
Best Achievement in Makeup
Should and Will Win: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End. As an aside...Norbit?!?!?!? Norbit got nominated for an Oscar?!?!?
Best Achievement in Costume Design
Should Win: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
Will Win: Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Best Achievement in Art Direction
Should Win and Will Win: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
Best Achievement in Editing
Should and Will Win: No Country For Old Men
Best Achievement in Cinematography
Should and Will Win: No Country For Old Men. Possible spoiler: The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford.
Okay, here we go...the ones people actually care about.
Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
Should Win: Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country For Old Men, by a mile. I am annoyed that James Vanderbilt was not nominated for his work on Zodiac, but that's what you get for releasing in March.
Will Win: They're going to give this to the runner-up for Best Picture, so PTA for There Will Be Blood. Christopher Hampton (Atonement) could be the spoiler here, but I certainly hope not.
Best Original Screenplay
Should and Will Win: Diablo Cody, for Juno. I mean, come on, people. Does anyone think she's not going to walk away with this one?
Best Achievement in Directing
Should and Will Win: Ethan and Joel Coen, No Country For Old Men. A million kudos to the Academy for nominating both of them. Also, all praise must go to Paul Thomas Anderson, Tony Gilroy and Jason Reitman, any of whom I would be happy to see win this. Truly an embarrasment of riches this year. Odd that Atonement got a Best Picture nod but there was no nomination for Joe Wright. Also, I am bestowing Pat's Honorary Nomination on David Fincher for Zodiac.
Best Supporting Actress
Should Win: Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton. I hear Amy Ryan was phenomenal, but I didn't see Gone Baby Gone, and I love Tilda, so personal bias wins out.
Will Win: Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone. Best Supporting Actress is traditionally one of the hardest awards to predict. They may give it to Ruby Dee for American Gangster as a "Congratulations For Living This Long And Kicking Ass The Whole Time" Award, or Cate Blanchett because she got nominated in two categories and won't win Best Actress, but I'm going with Amy Ryan.
Best Supporting Actor
Should and Will Win: Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men. The only potential spoiler is Hal Holbrook winning the Ruby Dee Longevity Award (see above). Again, I would be happy with any of these five men winning, particularly Bardem and Tom Wilkinson.
Best Actress
Should and Will Win: Ellen Page, Juno. I truly don't think there was a stronger female lead performance this year. If not, Julie Christie will take it. My only fear is that if Page wins, she'll fall into the Hollywood vortex and never be seen again. That would be a shame, for I love her so and want her to be the Jodie Foster of our generation.
Best Actor
Should and Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood, because its technical excellence aside, this movie was all about my boy DDL. That said, any of these five men could walk away from that podium, statue in hand, and I would be happy.
Best Picture
Should and Will Win: No Country For Old Men, but I am wicked happy that Michael Clayton got nominated for Best Picture, because it's the best movie that nobody saw this year. The only way that No Country won't win is if the votes get split with There Will Be Blood, in which case either Juno will win an award it doesn't deserve but I can live with, or Atonement will become this year's Crash and I will storm the Academy's headquarters with a knife in my teeth and hate in my heart.
In 2006, I made 20 predictions, of which 14 were correct (70%). In 2007, I made 20 predictions, of which 13 were correct (65%). This year, I'm making 21 forecasts; let's see if I can bump that percentage back up a little. The Academy Awards will be handed out on February 24th.