This morning’s Academy Award nominations really drove home to me why I write this blog. I am not embarrassed to tell you that I have yet to see any of the films nominated for Best Picture. That’s not to say that I won’t see them at some point. But I’ve come to understand that I just don’t care about keeping up with the flood of new releases or rushing to see every nominated film before the awards are announced.
I will discover the great films the way I’ve always discovered them, and in the same way that I find great music, or literature. Not (necessarily) from awards or year-end lists, but in my own time and in my own way. Maybe it will be through a friend’s recommendation, or an interesting review, or a connection with another film or actor or director.
But I don’t want this blog to try to “cover” the big news the way that so many other blogs do. They do it quicker, and bigger, and better most of the time.
The title “Toronto Screen Shots” may make this site sound like a generic (if local) film blog, but the truth is that it’s a personal site, with my idiosyncratic tastes on full display.
Instead of posting the nominations and carping about them, like hundreds of other sites will be doing today, I’m simply going to let it pass. If something shiny appears in the corner of my eye, I’ll let you know about it, as always, but it’s become clear to me that I’m just not qualified to talk about the Oscars right now when I’ve seen so few of the nominated films.
The media generally like to whip up the hype to make everyone think that this year’s nominees are among the greatest works of art ever committed to film. When you take the long view back into history, and the broad view around the world, you realize how ridiculous that really is.
Although it would appear that many winners of the 2007 Academy Awards are obvious in key categories, Sunday night may provide some surprises,one can only hope. The truth is, a surprise win can be the single most exciting development on the entire show! In the meantime, as we await and watch the show in anticipatory nausea, I think these are the potential winners in each category. Enjoy the show and relish the many fruitful, subsequent discussions!
Best Picture
No Country for Old Men
Actor
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Actress
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Supporting Actor
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Supporting Actress
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Director
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Foreign Film
The Counterfeiters, Austria
Adapted Screenplay
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Original Screenplay
Diablo Cody, Juno
Animated Feature Film
Ratatouille
Art Direction
There Will Be Blood
Cinematography
There Will Be Blood
Sound Mixing
Transformers
Sound Editing
Transformers
Original Score
Atonement, Dario Marianelli
Original Song
“Falling Slowly” from Once, Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
Costume Design
Atonement
Documentary Feature
No End in Sight
Documentary (short subject)
Sari’s Mother
Film Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum
Makeup
La Vie en rose
Animated Short Film
Madame Tutli-Putli
Live Action Short Film
Le Mozart des Pickpockets (The Mozart of Pickpockets)
Visual Effects
Transformers
Editor’s Note: Moen is very brave putting up his predictions. It’s something I never do, usually just picking for the Oscar pool an hour or so before the show. How about you? Feel free to post some of your boldest predictions in the comments.
Tagged as:
predictions
Some brilliant folks over at the National Film Board of Canada have come up with a unique and fun campaign for Oscar-nominated animated short Madame Tutli-Putli. Each visitor to the site can “unlock” a frame of the film each day. If all 23,287 frames are unlocked, then the entire film will be available for streaming on the site.
Not only is this a clever social media outreach, but it provides a way for people outside Canada to actually see the film, alleviating a common problem that many short films face. In my opinion, the film is a lock for the Oscar, and I’d heartily encourage you to participate in this innovative marketing campaign. They’re even giving away 200 copies of the DVD to random frame unlockers.
By the way, this is the NFB’s 70th Oscar nomination (they’ve won 12 times), and the fourth in the past four years.
Well-done, NFB!
Tagged as:
animation,
shorts
[The Oscars have] got nothing to do with standards of good moviemaking. And I mean nothing, as in what’s left when you take zero from zero, multiply it to infinity and divide it the number of times Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Ingmar Bergman or Akira Kurosawa won for Best Director. (Which was zip, by the way.)
Geoff Pevere is spot-on in his hilarious lambasting of the Oscars. But I’ll still probably watch them.
Tagged as:
geoffpevere
