Slumdog Oscar
The 2009 Academy Award nominations were announced this morning, two days later than usual due to historic events. This movie freak's first impression is that it's the most unusual lineup of nominees I can recall.
As expected, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (which I liked, though its numerous plot points lifted from Forrest Gump irritated me), Frost/Nixon (which I gave myself permission to skip), Milk (a great biopic), and Slumdog Millionaire (which I also really liked) all garnered Best Picture nods, while the fifth slot quite unexpectedly went to The Reader, the naked-Nazi Kate Winslet film I just saw last weekend. I liked it, with reservations, but it is not in the same league as the others.
Most industry analysts expected a nomination for The Dark Knight, the second biggest box office money maker of all time and the most critically lauded superhero film. I was highly impressed with it as well. Alas, I guess having a superhero loving new President and a superhero Oscar winner in the same year just wasn't meant to be...
Nominations that pleased me: Richard Jenkins as Best Actor for The Visitor (my favorite non-Batman film of the year), Kate Winslet (my wife in an alternate reality) as Best Actress for The Reader (though she actually should have won for a much better movie, Little Children, two years ago), and Heath Ledger as the Joker for Best Supporting Actor. I was also pleased that the little-seen movie Frozen River garnered a Best Actress nomination for Melissa Leo.
The Best Song nominees are forgettable, and I don't care who wins Best Animated Feature this time... I seem to have soured on WALL-E since it first opened.
If this person wins, I might drive a pickaxe through my own head: Anne Hathaway as Best Actress for Rachel Getting Married.
All told, I probably care about this particular set of Oscar nominees less than I ever have in three decades of movie fandom. None of those potential Best Pictures are ones I ever need to see again. Which means, in yet another way, we find that 2009 just has to be a better year than 2008. Good riddance!
4 comments:
Hi Jerry!
I totally agree with you about Kate Winslet in "Little Children." She should have swept all the awards for that one. I haven't seen "The Reader."
I'm not too stoked about this years Oscar noms, except for Melissa Leo in "Frozen River," which was probably the best movie I saw last year.
We just saw Synecdoche, New York on the big screen, which I thought was quite good (3.5 stars) and rented "I'm Not There," which we had to abandon about 2/3 of the way through. Todd Haynes is so uneven. "Safe" is one of my favorite movies of all time and I also think that "Far From Heaven" is brilliant, but, try as I might, I couldn't suss out his aim with "I'm Not There." Also, I normally think Cate Blanchett is a good actress but she really didn't know how to play her character in this one. Painful to watch.
Hi again,
Ooops! I forgot to use my real name. That last comment (from
Rozanne) was from Elizabeth in Portland (Mary and John's sister).
Hooray for Kate, Heath, and Sean Penn too. As for the ceremony itself... gayest Oscars ever!
Elizabeth,
I'm glad you liked "Little Children," "Frozen River," and "Far From Heaven." I will have to rent "Safe" sometime as somehow I missed that one upon original release.
I like Cate Blanchett too, since first seeing her in "Oscar and Lucinda."
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