My academy has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R

[40cakes]

It's Oscar time, kids! Here's the rundown and bizarre stuff so far:

PICTURE
"Babel"
"The Departed"
"Letters from Iwo Jima"
"Little Miss Sunshine"
"The Queen"
Now I REALLY have an excuse not to watch Little Miss Sunshine.

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Alan Arkin, "Little Miss Sunshine"
Jackie Earle Haley, "Little Children"
Djimon Hounsou, "Blood Diamond"
Eddie Murphy, "Dreamgirls"
Mark Wahlberg, "The Departed"
Take a moment and realize that Professor Klump and Marky Mark are dueling it out for an Oscar. Okay.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
"Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan" Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer, Todd Phillips
"Children of Men" David Arata, Alfonso Cuarón, Mark Fergus, Timothy J. Sexton, Hawk Ostby
"The Departed" Wiliam Monahan
"Little Children" Todd Field, Tom Perrotta
"Notes on a Scandal" Patrick Marber
Oh, and Borat's up for an Oscar, too.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
"Babel" Guillermo Arriaga
"Letters from Iwo Jima" Iris Yamashita, Paul Haggis
"Little Miss Sunshine" Michael Arndt
"Pan's Labyrinth" Guillermo del Toro
"The Queen" Peter Morgan
Oh please oh please oh please Pan's Labyrinth. PLEASE!

ART DIRECTION
"Dreamgirls"
"The Good Shepherd"
"Pan’s Labyrinth"
"Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest"
"The Prestige"
I mean the sets and the effects and the Pale Man's room!

CINEMATOGRAPHY
"The Black Dahlia" (Universal) Vilmos Zsigmond
"Children of Men" (Universal) Emmanuel Lubezki
"The Illusionist" (Yari Film Group) Dick Pope
"Pan's Labyrinth" (Picturehouse) Guillermo Navarro
"The Prestige" (Buena Vista) Wally Pfister
Seriously, did you SEE the way they'd guide your eye and shoot different scenes with the same setup and the moving the camera around the trees to come out at a different scene? I love this movie so much.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
"After the Wedding" Zentropa Entertainments; IFC (Denmark)
"Days of Glory" Tessalit Productions; The Weinstein Co. (Algeria)
"The Lives of Others" Wiedemann & Berg Filmproduktion; Sony Pictures Classics (Germany)
"Pan's Labyrinth" Estudios Picasso/Tequila Gang/Esperanto; Picturehouse (Mexico)
"Water" Téléfilm Canada/Noble Nomad Pictures Ltd.; Fox Searchlight (Canada)
I cross all my widdle fingers and my toes.

MAKEUP
"Apocalypto"
"Click"
"Pan’s Labyrinth"
Think about that for a moment. Pan's Labyrinth is an adult fairytale set during the final days of the Spanish Civil War. There's dirt and dust and scars and blood and monsters. Apocalypto is Mel Gibson's latest gibberishfest, but it's set in an ancient time, with tribal makeup and so on. CLICK IS AN ADAM SANDLER FEELGOOD FAMILY VEHICLE. WTF.

Comments

[agentjuana.livejournal.com]

why don't you want to see little miss sunshine!?!

[nothingjerk.livejournal.com]

Mark Wahlberg

wah?

Im not saying he was bad, but he was hardly great Alec baldwin was better

I pull for teh Departed the whole way (seeing as how its the only movie besides Little Miss Sunshine that i saw ((not that I didnt love Little Miss Sunshine I just loved teh Departed More)

[online-stalker.livejournal.com]

actually, in click there was a lot of good makeup because they had to age several of the main characters, and it was really believable.

not that i'm admitting to watching click or anything...

[jerseyfabulous.livejournal.com]

i join you in cheering on pan's labyrinth. except possibly in the foreign language film, where i'm very conflicted, because the lives of others is also good. why couldn't they just have nominated pan's labyrinth for straight up best picture?

[restivemind.livejournal.com]

Because Pan's would lose. Wouldn't even be close. The Best Picture category is there to "reward" films that are perceived as much more cutting edge "Hollywood". Wouldn't want Americans (and more specifically, showbiz Americans) to be denied a victory for a domestic film with at least a shot of grossing more $ than all but the rarest of imported films, now would we? Sure, every five years or so, they'll let a British film win, but everything else is too foreign. For instance, was Chariots of Fire really a better film than Das Boot? No, but at least it was British.

[pyrobovaphiliac.livejournal.com]

Because it's psuedo-indie? The ideas and plot all seem to be an amalgamation of other popular indie movies. (The Squid and the Whale, The Puffy Chair, Broken Flowers) They hired directors that usually directed music videos. (like Michel Gondry) There are even rumors that they tried to get Bill Murray for it. Little Miss Sunshine just seems like an attempt to make a cookie-cutter indie flick

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

Well, my answer was gonna be, "Because I read the plot synopsis and said, meh," but sure, your answer works, too. Are you allowed to keep your indie cred if you date someone who voluntarily owns Spice World?

[pyrobovaphiliac.livejournal.com]

Good call! It's not like the Oscars are some award for merit or something like that. It's not a "May the best man win," situation. It would be pretty cool if there was a real movie award show available.

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

I feel like awards are sometimes like Zoolander - "that Mark Wahlberg's so hot right now!" Or maybe Alec Baldwin pissed somebody off and they don't want to nominate him.

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

Well alright then, I'll concede that one. And we'll pretend no one watched Click :)

[fadingembers.livejournal.com]

That was sort of how I felt when the "Best Animation" category was created. They just wanted to ghettoize animated films, and I have a feeling Disney played a hand in it, so that their shitty kids movies could still win awards (since the award's inception, there haven't been many worthy candidates up for it, and they keep finding excuses to exclude quality anime films, unless they're VERY mainstream.)

[stormkpr.livejournal.com]

I really liked Little Miss Sunshine - hope you will too!

[duelingrose.livejournal.com]

If I fell asleep through it, does that count as watching?

[pyrobovaphiliac.livejournal.com]

Only if they own it ironically. In other words, no.

Then again, I don't think indie cred applies for taste in people. That's a bridge too far.

[pyrobovaphiliac.livejournal.com]

Then again, Disney bought the rights to Ghibli films now. So they should be fair game. I haven't seen many great anime films that weren't Ghibli in the past few years.