Oscar Predictions and Wishes

Best Supporting Actress

This is one of the very close calls. I think Cate Blanchett will edge out Virginia Madsen, but it would not surprise me if it went the other way. If I were voting, I'd have a difficult time deciding between Blanchett and Natalie Portman and in my heart of hearts honestly I would probably vote for Natalie Portman who really pulls off the trick of playing a character who is inscrutable to everyone (including the audience) but herself.

Best Supporting Actor

It sure seems like Morgan Freeman will take it and while I have zero problem with that my vote would go to Clive Owen.

Best Actress

Hilary Swank should become the second youngest two-time Best Actress winner on Sunday (Jodie Foster was younger when she won her second for The Silence of the Lambs). I suppose Annette Bening still has an outside chance to upset her, but it doesn't feel like it's going to happen. My vote would go to Kate Winslet who captures every thing that would draw someone to the character while being repelled by her simultaneously.

Best Actor

Jamie Foxx will win this. Two months ago I would have voted for him as well but I admit I'm getting burned out on seeing him everywhere and out of protest I might have voted for Clint Eastwood who allowed himself to crack his movie-star image and give a real actor's performance.

Best Original Screenplay

If there is any justice in the world the most creative screenwriter in the business, Charlie Kaufman, will win for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I suppose The Incredibles and The Aviator have slight upset potential. I would have voted for Kaufman.

Best Adapted Screenplay

This should be the only award of the night for Sideways. My vote would go to the trio who wrote Before Sunset, the best film of the decade.

Best Director

My head says it will be Eastwood and my heart says it will be Scorsese. I'm going to go with my head on this, that way if Scorsese wins I'll be so happy I won't care if I'm wrong.

Best Picture

While I would have voted for The Aviator, it is to me easily the best film of the five, I fully expect to see Million Dollar Baby take the big one. If it doesn't, expect The Aviator to be the winner.

This is a Really Good Idea

Really, this is the best idea I've heard in months. He helmed the most visually interesting episode of ER ever.

Bravo Owes Me an Hour!

So just because Malcolm Jamal-Warner (The artist formally known as as Huxtable) managed to sweep through his Celebrity Poker Showdown competitors quickly this week's episode of the show was only an hour long as opposed to the usually two. While normally I would experience only mild disappointment at this, Heather Graham (that's Mrs. Moviegeek to all of you who live in my fantasy world) was not only one of his opponents but finished second. Only one hour of Heather playing poker is not enough. Bravo owes me outtakes, behind-the-scenes footage, or something like that preferably on a DVD that they can overnight directly to my home.

And for what it is worth, Nadia Turner is the best contestant I've ever seen at this point in any of the America Idol competition.

The Ten Best Films of 2004

Sorry for the lack of new postings for the last few days. Your devoted moviegeek has been hunkered down viewing and reviewing the best of last year in order to create the best of year-end list.

10. Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
Sure there are better films than this that will not be on my list, but it is impossible to make a high-concept Hollywood comedy that not only rewards multiple-viewings because of the various ways it gets laughs, but also manages to assume that the audience actually has some intelligence. Rawson Marshall Thurber is one to watch.

9. Kinsey
Bill Condon's screenplay for the biopic of Alfred Kinsey is worthy of study. He has managed to encapsulate the complicated inner-world of an outwardly dull man, he made it visually interesting, and he managed to create two fascinating supporting characters to flesh out the story. A clear-headed, reasonable film about an electrifying subject matter, Kinsey achieves its greatest success in being a fascinating character study.

8. Shaun of the Dead
A ceaselessly funny, yet also scary zombie movie that has a great deal of respect for the genre. For social commentary, absurdist humor, and genuine terror this British film is a better tribute to George Romero's Dawn of the Dead than the American remake of that film that hit theaters this year as well (and the remake was still a good film).

7. Closer
What is escapism? For some people it's watching stuff blow-up. For others it's watching Jim Carrey talk out of his ass. For me it's watching beautiful people lie to themselves and each other and treat each other horribly while speaking strikingly cruel and witty dialogue. This fits that bill. Natalie Portman and Clive Owen deliver two of the best performances of the year, and Julia Roberts gives the best performance of her career.

6. The Aviator
Martin Scorsese's take on the early life of Howard Hughes shows Marty having more fun while making a movie than anything he has made in close to fifteen years. So much to admire including the amazingly conceived cinematography, the beautiful art direction, and two superb performances by Leonardo DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett.

5. The Dreamers
I recognized myself in Bernardo Bertolucci's ode to the point in every young moviegeek's life where sex, politics, and movies combine in order to shape the adult they will grow into. This was kind of like someone saw inside my heart and brain and made a movie about what they saw. I feel intimate with this film, and that rare feeling helps catapult it into the top 5.

4. Kill Bill Vol. 2
Really the entire opus is what holds this spot for the film was always to be taken as a whole. The secret to Tarantino is that he so clearly communicates the sheer joy he takes from and puts into the filmmaking process. Argue that this is a slick, empty revenge film if you want, but you are denying the fact that he does provide an emotional context for just about everything that happens and he gives David Carradine a chance to shine in a way nobody else ever thought possible. He loves Bill and the Bride, and it is easy to go along with his emotion.

3. Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Capturing a life is a very difficult task for a movie to achieve. This documentary captures three lives and details how those lives interact with each other. And it's about so much more - how to make a modern rock record, how twelve-step recovery can affect relationships, and (most importantly for moviemakers) this film is about how to edit a documentary in order to slowly achieve a level of intimacy that very few films scripted or not ever attain.

2. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Charlie Kaufman's perfect script is enhanced by Michel Gondry's inventive direction that - while stylish - never overwhelms the disturbing struggle at the heart of this remarkably moving film about why and how we get into relationships and risk feeling the pain that we seem to know this will cause. The best performance of Jim Carrey's career, and yet another in a an ongoing series of breathtaking performances by Kate Winslet.

1. Before Sunset
The best film since Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia. Quite simply, perfect. For details, click on the link to read my AMG review - I couldn't say it any better.


In the interest of fairness these are the five films I have yet to see that I wish I had seen before composing this list:
Bad Education
Brown Bunny
Dogville
Los Angeles Plays Itself
Moolade

How Arrested Development is like Raging Bull

There is a very funny conversation in Raging Bull where Jake's brother is trying to explain to Jake why weather he wins or he loses his next fight they are going to give him a title shot. The same logic is being used by Fox to explain why the best show on television, Arrested Development is going to be picked up for next year even though it is being pulled for May sweeps.

First stills from big screen Miami Vice remake

Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx are starring as Crockett and Tubbs in a big screen adaptation of Michael Mann's quintessential 80s cop show Miami Vice. Here is the first production still to hit the web:

Thank you Skyler

Welcome to yet another concentric circle of hell

I wonder if this comes with a toy Red Bull and Vodka.

Shout out to Jen for the link.

Best Quote of the Weekend

While hosting this weekend's BAFTA awards (the British Academy Awards) host Stephen Fry quipped that if Vera Drake had not won any awards it would have been a "miscarriage of justice."

For those who don't yet know about the Tom Sizemore arrest please read this.

Inside the Acting Process with Tom Cruise

Gifted Texas Hold 'Em player, Arrested Development fan, and all around good guy Skyler has started construction on a website that deconstructs the acting process of one of America's biggest stars, Tom Cruise. Check out the first step now, but please check back over the next few weeks as he adds essays from some of the most respected film thinkers in Michigan.

The Best Acting Debut of the Year

Joshua Marston's Maria Full of Grace is structured more like a novel than a film, and in this case that is a compliment. The film plays out in sections that each serve a dramatic function, while always seamlessly providing the audience with the little details that make a story fascinating. The beginning sections of the film establish the life Maria (Catalina Sandino Moreno) leads with an economy the first-time directs rarely display. A viewer can easily marvel at the first-class directing, editing, and cinematography, but all eyes will probably be drawn to Catalina Sandino Moreno. Moreno, 23 but playing 17, captures all the contradictions of a strong-willed young woman who is sure of herself while seemingly always aware that she isn't as in control as she makes it seem. Because the film offers a documentary like approach to explaining what she must do to herself and what she experiences - the sequence on the plane is a claustrophobic nightmare that will work on an audience's nerves with a Hitchcockian precision - the audience is always with her. But it is because of her impressively mature performance that you care about this head-strong girl who feels the need to act like she has all the answers even when she knows she doesn't. Of the five best actress nominees Moreno has the least chance to take the award home, but if there were an award for debut performances she would be a lock to win it.

If this were 1927....

The very first Academy Awards had two different Best Picture awards. One was for the "Best Production" while the other was more or less awarded for "Best Artistic Achievement". Some may find it interesting that if that were still the case, Martin Scorsese would probably win this year's "Best Production" award, while Clint Eastwood would be awarded the "Best Artistic Achievement" statuette. For some reason that strikes me as very strange.

When Why It Happened Is More Important Than What Happened

Mike Leigh films are hit or miss for me. He is a masterful observer of behavior and his humanism is always apparent in the care he extends for his characters. However, if he has a weakness it is that he is not skilled with plot. The first hour of Vera Drake ranks alongside Leigh's very best work. All of the actors create a realistic portrayal of a family living in Britain during the fifties. Vera, a pitch-perfect Imelda Staunton, seems like a good-hearted middle-class bore picking up a few pounds a week as a cleaning woman. Soon it is revealed, just as matter-of-factly as everything in a Mike Leigh film is revealed, that Vera is performing abortions for local girls who are in need of such a procedure. The film approaches the topic in an even-handed way - the film is not about abortion but about a woman who performs abortions. This is not a political film, but a character study. When Vera becomes enmeshed in the legal system, the film loses some of the power it built up as Leigh has no natural feel for suspense or plot. We understand why Vera does what she does, and that really is all the film is concerned with. Her trial makes up the film's final act and it is a real let down as there is nothing new to learn about Vera. We already know why she does it, and now the film is forced to deal with what happens to her. Leigh has no feel for building suspense, and that leads to this section of the film watering-down the audience's involvement with the character. For giving us a rich three-dimensional set of characters as well as handling a controversial topic in a measured intelligent way the film can not be faulted, and sadly that makes the anticlimactic third act all the more disappointing.

What else is there to do after Conan is over?

Will someone please tell this kid that Blockbuster doesn't charge late fees anymore.

The best reason to love Celebrity Poker Showdown

I have been a huge fan of Bravo's Celebrity Poker Showdown since it first aired. I have been playing poker since I was 7, and I'm fascinated by celebrity so it seemed like a perfect fit. However, it was while watching this week's new episode last night that I was struck by an epiphany that made clear why this show is appointment viewing for me. Celebrity Poker Showdown is the closest this generation is going to get to Battle of the Network Stars. I think they stopped creating new versions of Battle of the Network Stars when I was about ten, and I have missed it ever since. Times have changed. Celebrities now control their images so strongly that they are not willing to humiliate themselves on an obstacle course for the entertainment of the viewing audience. To win at an obstacle course doesn't really impress anyone, but winning at poker signifies a certain kind of intelligence or at least mental skill. (I'm not saying this is CCelebrity Chess Showdown) Winning on the show confers just enough respectability that the program gets decent stars, but the losers - especially the people who go out very early - are genuinely embarrassed which is something audiences rarely see. This extra element is what makes the show one of my very favorites.

And if you are new to the game, CPS will teach you more about how-to-play Texas Hold 'em than any other poker show on television.

And, on a purely selfish note, my fantasy girlfriend will be on the show in three weeks.

Roger Ebert not only reads his E-mails - he responds

Roger Ebert wrote this the other day.

I was impressed enough to send the following E-mail:

Roger,

Your appreciation for Million Dollar Baby dovetails nicely with your lack
of enthusiasm for My Life Without Me. In the former you admit that you do
not agree with what Maggie does but you appreciate that she does exactly
what the character would do. You also expressed great misgivings about what
Ann, the Sarah Polley character, chooses to do in My Life Without Me. You
dismissed the film in your review largely because you could not accept her
decision, and you defend that position by putting her actions in the context
of the film. Congratulations on sticking to your personal ethical compass.

A longtime fan,
Perry Seibert
Ann Arbor, MI

And what do I find in my inbox today?:

Thanks for being so thoughtful and finding consistency there. We do
not have to agree with everything the character do in a film to admire
it as a work.
Best,
RE

Thanks, Roger.