In Hollywood, the writers' strike looms large over every aspect of filmmaking, with planned motion pictures scuttled because of unfinished scripts and even a glitzy affair like the Golden Globes reduced to a mere half-hour infomercial. But when the Oscar nominations were revealed last week, nobody was thinking about the strike. Instead, it took the death of a great young actor to dampen the celebratory mood surrounding the selections for the 80th Academy Awards.
Two years after earning his own Oscar nomination (Best Actor for Brokeback Mountain), Heath Ledger was dead at the age of 28, a long and promising career snuffed out just like that. The news broke just hours after the unveiling of this year's contenders; days of remorse and reflection followed, but since the show must go on -- even if the writers dictate that it mustn't -- industry attention has shifted back in full force to the pictures and individuals honored in this 80th annual Oscar race.
Expect to see Ledger earn prominent positioning in the "In Memorial" section of the show. And yes, there will be a show, if Academy spokespeople are to be believed. No one knows the format yet, but surely it's got to be better executed than that Globe press conference, right? Right?
We'll see. In the meantime, here are some observations about this year's crop of contenders.
Highlights:
• The Best Actor nomination for In the Valley of Elah's Tommy Lee Jones. This was the biggest surprise of the televised nominations, meaning it's the one that earned the loudest cheer from me. Jones delivers what might be the best performance of his lengthy career in this Iraq War drama, but the film was such a box office flop -- and Jones' chances for an Oscar nod were pinned on his supporting turn in No Country for Old Men -- that no one gave him much hope of cracking the list of finalists (in fact, the competition was so fierce in this category that, in my Oscar pool, no one even had him listed as an alternate selection). Happily, enough Academy members popped the screeners into their DVD players to make a difference.
• The Best Actress nomination for The Savages' Laura Linney. Linney seemed like a shoo-in ... before the Oscar season took off. Suddenly, she was inexplicably MIA: The Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild and critics' groups all elected to ignore her marvelous work opposite Philip Seymour Hoffman (who managed to snag a Globe nod for his performance). But come Oscar nom time, and here's Linney taking her rightful place. As for Hoffman, he was skipped over for his lead work in Savages (as well as Before the Devil Knows You're Dead), but he's in the running for Best Supporting Actor for Charlie Wilson's War.
• The Best Animated Feature Film nomination for Persepolis. Given the Academy's tendency to reward mediocre kid toons over anything more edgy (Brother Bear, Treasure Planet and Shark Tale all received nominations in the past), I fully expected the shrug-inducing Bee Movie to join deserving nominees Ratatouille and The Simpsons Movie on the final ballot. Fortunately, this incisive French import, about an Iranian girl's coming of age, made the cut instead. (Alas, Simpsons was nixed; the third nominee is the penguin comedy Surf's Up.)
• The Best Director nomination for Juno's Jason Reitman. For the last couple of months, all the talk surrounding Juno has been about the contributions of writer Diablo Cody and star Ellen Page, with Reitman's direction rarely warranting even a footnote. But the Academy noticed his contributions to this quirky indie hit -- either that, or it's a way to apologize for completely ignoring his Thank You For Smoking the previous year.
• The Best Original Song nomination for Once's "Falling Slowly." Proving once again that no branch is as lazy as that of the songwriters and composers, the voters in this department popped one movie into their DVD player -- Enchanted -- and nominated three songs from it so they would only be responsible for locating two more (they did the same thing last year by picking three songs from Dreamgirls). I don't recall the August Rush tune, but they nailed the last nominee perfectly. The lovely "Falling Slowly" deserves to win the Oscar, and the fact that the tune hails from a movie about musicians makes its inclusion all that more appropriate.
Low Points:
• The Best Actress nomination for Elizabeth: The Golden Age's Cate Blanchett. Look, there's nothing wrong with Blanchett's performance in this belated sequel to 1998's Elizabeth, but it's simply not as exciting as when she essayed the role the first time (earning an Oscar nod back then as well); besides, she's far more interesting as Bob Dylan in I'm Not There, for which she earned a second nomination (this one for Best Supporting Actress). Her Best Actress slot would have been better served by going to Enchanted's Amy Adams, A Mighty Heart's Angelina Jolie or Sweeney Todd's Helena Bonham Carter.
• The snubbing of 300. Heaven knows I wasn't a fan of what I deem The Ultimate Fanboy Movie, but let's give credit where credit's due, shall we? Aside from Across the Universe and the barely seen sci-fi yarn Sunshine, the only 2007 release with comparably excellent special effects was Transformers, and that's been rewarded via its inclusion in the Best Visual Effects contest. 300 should be at its side, knocking out either The Golden Compass (with its hot-and-cold effects) or the been-there-done-that Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (whose predecessor won the award last year). Nods for 300's makeup, costume and set designs also wouldn't have been out of line.
• The controversy surrounding the Best Foreign Language Film category. Admittedly, this tempest began a few weeks ago, but it still stings. After a record 63 countries each submitted a picture for consideration, the members of the Academy's foreign language film committee -- mainly, older and more conservative voters who have time to watch all these movies -- pared the list down to nine, from which the five nominees were selected. But the brouhaha began when the list of nine didn't include three highly praised titles: Romania's 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, France's Persepolis (which did manage to snag a Best Animated Feature Film nod, as noted above) and Spain's The Orphanage. Meanwhile, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the most lauded import of last year, wasn't even eligible for the prize since France chose not to submit it (it scored four major nods elsewhere, though, including one for Best Director). Except for the Documentary Feature category, this has long proven the most troublesome for the Academy, and its officers promise once again to work out an improved voting system.
• The Best Makeup nomination for Norbit. It doesn't bother me (as it does other scribes) that we'll be referring to this movie as "the Academy Award-nominated Norbit" from now on -- after all, we've had to refer to "the Academy Award-nominated Patch Adams" for years (that wretched movie picked up a nod for its music score). It's just that the makeup designs in the film aren't especially fresh or innovative. This marks the sixth collaboration between ace makeup artist Rick Baker and Eddie Murphy, and the fourth time Baker's been nominated for these joint endeavors (he deservedly won for The Nutty Professor). In this category, I'll be rooting for La Vie En Rose's Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald to win: Their transformation of the beautiful, 32-year-old Marion Cotillard into the frail and sickly Edith Piaf is astonishing.
• The poor showing of musicals. From the giddiness of Hairspray to the psychedelia of Across the Universe, from the melancholy of Once to the moods of I'm Not There, musicals emerged as a viable genre again in 2007. Yet by and large, the Academy chose to ignore them, shutting out Hairspray and Control (as well as several documentaries about notable rock icons) and awarding solitary nods to Across the Universe (Best Costume Design), Once (Best Original Song) and I'm Not There (Best Supporting Actress).
Other Points Of Interest:
• For the third year in a row, penguins continue to make their presence known at the Academy Awards. In the 2005 contest, they were the stars of the Best Documentary Feature winner March of the Penguins, and for 2006, they were the stars of the Best Animated Feature winner Happy Feet. Now they're back as the stars of the Best Animated Feature nominee Surf's Up. Their winning streak will doubtless come to an end, though, as the movie's pitted against the critically acclaimed Persepolis and the critically and commercially revered front-runner, Ratatouille.
• Two of last year's five nominees in the Best Documentary Feature category focused on Bush's disastrous war in Iraq. This year, that number has risen to three, as a trio of movies -- No End In Sight, Taxi to the Dark Side and Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience -- center on the debacle (and as a side result convincingly make the case that it's still not too late to impeach this war criminal of a president). For the record, the other two nominees are the affecting War/Dance, which earned two major awards at last fall's Asheville Film Festival, and Michael Moore's gripping Sicko, which sticks it to the insurance companies (and the politicians who coddle them) the way they stick it to ordinary Americans.
• Thanks to Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Johnny Depp has earned his third Best Actor nomination in a five-year span. Cate Blanchett isn't slacking off, either: She now has four nominations (lead and supporting) in a four-year span and five in the past decade.
• It's nice to see veteran Ruby Dee earn her first Oscar nomination at the age of 83. The longtime legend is up for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Denzel Washington's mother in American Gangster. Somewhere in heaven, Ossie Davis -- fellow actor and husband of 56 years -- is beaming with pride.
• Among the five nominees for Best Foreign Language Film is Mongol, which hails from Kazakhstan. Is the nomination Hollywood's apology for the humiliation the country endured after the release of the previous year's Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan?
How they compare
Oscar's 5 Best
These were the films nominated by the Academy for Best Picture.
1. No Country for Old Men (8 nominations)
2. There Will Be Blood (8)
3. Atonement (7)
4. Michael Clayton (7)
5. Juno (4)
Critics' 5 Best
Based on a national sampling of 250 reviewers, these were the films that appeared the most frequently on critics' 10 Best lists.
1. No Country for Old Men
2. There Will Be Blood
3. Zodiac
4. Juno
5. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
(Source: www.moviecitynews.com)
Brunson's 5 Best
These were my picks for the year's best movies.
1. No Country for Old Men
2. Gone Baby Gone
3. Juno
4. 2 Days In Paris
5. No End In Sight
Moviegoers' 5 Best
These were the year's biggest moneymaking releases.
1. Spider-Man 3
2. Shrek the Third
3. Transformers
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
(Source: www.boxofficemojo.com)
... AND THE WORST
OK, we now have a sense of which films reigned as the biggest and/or best of 2007. But what about the worst? Glad you asked. We compiled data from various sources (critics' lists, Rotten Tomatoes, Golden Raspberry Awards) and ascertained that the following titles were the year's biggest turkeys:
1. Because I Said So
2. Daddy Day Camp
3. Good Luck Chuck
4. I Know Who Killed Me
5. License to Wed