80th Academy Awards Nominations

[Sabin]

On the one hand, Corliss has a point.

The Academy has fallen majorly out of touch with what is inherently populist in the years following 'The Lord of the Rings'. That would fantastic if this shift allowed for better choices. In 2004, the highest-grossing nominees were pushed by Oscars into $100+ million: 'The Aviator' and 'Million Dollar Baby', in a year where audiences embraced 'Fahrenheit 9/11', 'The Incredibles', 'The Passion of the Christ', 'Shrek 2', and 'Spider-Man 2'. Now, I know I would take at least two of those over the likes of 'Finding Neverland' and 'Ray'. However, if the Academy had the Indie Spirit sensibilities he claims they did, then there is no excuse for the exclusion of 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', a Focus Feature that contented in its position as the 2nd Most Acclaimed Movie of the Year, let alone the topically powerful 'Hotel Rwanda'.

In '05, the Academy could've chosen 'Walk the Line', a movie that audiences clearly related to be opted out. And last year, 'Dreamgirls', 'The Devil Wears Prada', and 'The Pursuit of Happyness' touched people far more than 'The Queen'. Last year's 'The Departed' is the only $100+ million grosser that audiences genuinely loved without any guidance from the great big caucus that is the Academy. Instead, like today's politics, these middlebrow conservatively liberal choices groomed from safe indiewood prestige are chosen. Biopics and message pleas, all of them albeit with varying degrees of success. Those that remain are faux indie hipster pics like 'Little Miss Sunshine' and 'Sideways', which have nothing really independent about them.

Martin Scorsese's 'The Departed' almost doesn't fit the mold as it is rooted in populist sell-out blockbusterdom-turned-accidental sensation, but as a Scorsese film it is rooted in Oscar-baiting prestige. Clint Eastwood's daring balls-out WWII experiment substitutes blockebusterdom for prestige but still feels against the grain at least in its quiet Ford-ian sensibilities. And I know 'The Queen' fits in safely as well somehow.

However, this year is almost totally different. 'Atonement' is a prestige piece if there ever was one, 'Juno' is certainly better than tone deaf-hipness, and 'Michael Clayton' thinks it's about something very important...but 'No Country for Old Men' and 'There Will Be Blood' are rooted in either bold existentialism or obsessive tunnel vision that are rarely embraced by the public or the Academy. I would argue that these two movies are about something in a decade where films nominated either are categorically not or trumpet their message so loud it becomes obnoxious. 'Gosford Park' is about mutually parasitic class war, 'The Pianist' about the perversity of survival, 'Traffic' (bluntly) about drug trafficking, and 'In the Bedroom', 'Brokeback Mountain', 'Munich', and 'Babel' all have their moments. 'No Country for Old Men' and 'There Will Be Blood' get their point bloody well across.

Corliss is right and this year I'm glad he is.



Edited By Sabin on 1201174652

[Damien]

Richard Corliss used to be the critic for William F. Buckley's National Review, so presumably he's a right-winger.

His anti-auteurist efforts never really took and "the book in which he set forth his treatise (I think it was called Talking Pictures" ) is -- unlike Andrew Sarris's seminal The American Cinema -- pretty much forgotten.

[mashari]

In the press Angelina Jolie is this year's unofficial face of the slighted(I wonder if that distinction does as well for your career as if you were indeed nominated?), but I am kind of surprised that Keener got excluded as well. I really thought she was well liked by her peers.

[Big Magilla]

A few interesting facts about this year's nominations:

This is the first year since the supporting actor/actress categories were created that only one film (Michael Clayton) has received more than one acting nomination.

A total of 18 films received acting nominations. This appears to be the highest number in Oscar history.

The previous record holder was 1992, when 17 films received acting nominations (The Crying Game, Howards End, and Unforgiven each received two nominations).

The lowest number of films to receive acting nominations in a given year since 1936 occurred in 1981, when only 9 films received acting nominations. Reds (4), On Golden Pond (3), and Only When I Laugh (3) together received half of the acting nominations given out that year.

Interesting - underscores the fact that this was a banner year for films with strong acting.

Into the Wild was teh one most robbed. Emile Hirsch and Catherine Keener should have been nominated.

Though it did well enough overall, No Counry for Old Men is another film that might have gooten multiple acting nominations (Tommy Lee Jones here instead of in In the Valey of Elah, Kelly Macdonald, perhaps even Josh Brolin). There Will Be Blood probably also came close to picking up a second acting nod for Paul Dano.

Though not expected, it would have been sweet to see Gordon Pinsent nominated for Away From Her and sweeter still to see both Irfan Khan and Tabu nominated for The Namesake.

Atonement, in early buzz, was touted for no less than five acting nominations for James MacAvoy, Keira Knightley, Saoirse Ronan, SRomola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave but ended up getting onely one for Ronan, who was arguably the best of the lot.



Edited By Big Magilla on 1201120417

[rain Bard]

Corliss made a name for himself by being one of the earliest to put forth a screenwriter-as-film's-author alternative to the auterism of the 1970s. But that doesn't seem to be a particular hobby horse for him now that he's at Time Magazine.

My own thoughts:

On the Simpsons Movie snub: I agree with OscarGuy's take, especially his consideration of the Annie Awards precursor (the main clue that it would be Surf's Up and not Bee Movie that would capture animators' fancy) and the well-known outsourcing of animation labor associated with the Simpsons. While the Academy isn't as Hollywood-protectionist as the guilds (which is the main reason why Atonement fared better here, I reckon), they still favor product that brings the maximum amount of prestige to American artists and technicians.

Also, and I know I don't get to score any points for this because I kept quiet about it (not having seen the Simpsons Movie for myself), but I was very skeptical of the tv-to-film adaptation's placement on so many predictions, considering that the animation in the tv show has rarely been a display for top quality animation. Even when, at its best, it's showcased top quality satire, imagination and voice acting. It's not quite the "illustrated radio" that Chuck Jones liked to call 1960's television product which cut every known corner in the animation department, but it's not particularly impressive on its own merits. The equivalent is an actor who can say all his or her lines perfectly, but does little or nothing to physically inhabit the character aside from being cast to type. Most average audiences accept this tv-style animation because it's interesting enough to just watch the unreality of the image. But most feature film animators want to see expressive character motion representing their artform on the big screen.

Obviously, I get no points for all my skepticism surrounding There Will Be Blood nominations either (except for Jonny Greenwood, which I can take no pleasure in at all). I'm still unable to wrap my head around the idea that it might actually win Best Picture or Best Director, but now that I have a chance to see it again I will, and hopefully that will clarify things for me.

Hooray for Viggo!

I have more to say on the shorts categories, but I'll save it for later.



Edited By rain Bard on 1201118598

[OscarGuy]

Corliss apparently missed the boat on the age of the members. With most dying out and several newer, younger members coming in, it would be improper to say a good portion of the membership is older than John McCain.

Also, notice how he left out the exclusion of There Will Be Blood from the ineligibility list? And then he lumps Lust, Caution into the missing nominees when it wasn't even submitted as Taiwan's entry...

[Greg]

It reads like Richard Corliss is gunning for his own review show on Fox News.

[Akash]

But you've seen Sweeney Todd...OH. RIGHT :p

[anonymous1980]

I just realized: This is the probably the first year since watching movies and the Oscars regularly that I haven't seen ANY of the Best Picture nominees by Oscar nomination time. I usually have seen one or two at least by now. Not intentionally though since none of them have had a theatrical release here yet. The only one with a definite release date is Atonement.



Edited By anonymous on 1201113578

[Zahveed]

That guy's panties are up in a bunch aren't they... For the most part it sounds like he's all about the starfucking, but I can't tell if he's being sarcastic or he's really complaining about these nominees.

And what a depressing note to end on.

[ITALIANO]

Who is this idiot?

[Franz Ferdinand]

The Downsizing of Oscar
Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2008 By RICHARD CORLISS

Why not just change the name, from the Oscars to the Independent Spirit Awards? That was the first thought on hearing today's nominations for the Academy Awards. All five finalists for Best Picture were made independently of the big studios, and four of the five — Atonement, Juno, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood — were released by the so-called indie subsidiaries of the majors. Michael Clayton is the one official studio release, and that got made only when its star, George Clooney, ever so charmingly put a gun to Warner's corporate groin, cocked the trigger and said, in effect, "Please. Or I'll squeeze."

Each of the five films was made for $30 million or less — unheard of when the average studio project costs three times that — and Juno had a ludicrously low budget of $2.5 million. Yet that endearing/annoying (take your pick) comedy about a pregnant teenager is the one solid hit among the Big Five. The movie, which has been in wide release only since Christmas day, has already earned $87 million. None of the others has yet topped $50 million at the domestic wickets (though the Brit Atonement is in Juno's league if you count the international gross).

This lack of a big-studio pedigreed film makes predicting the winners a daunting task. No Country may be a masterpiece, but it's a cold-blooded one, perhaps too much a splatter fest and a museum piece for Oscar voters. There Will Be Blood has packed them in at a relatively few theaters since its Christmas day opening; as it rolls out for wider release, will it pick up steam or antagonize the mass audience? Even if Blood doesn't cop the top prize, as I uneasily predicted, it will win Daniel Day-Lewis the Best Actor award over everybody's favorite movie star (Clooney). DDL's performance is so manic, so intense, and he slips so deeply into his roles, that Academy members will be afraid to vote against him. He might come to their homes and devour their young.

Other categories are less obscure than infuriating. After disqualifying Alan Menken's score for Enchantment, the Academy nominated three of his tunes for Best Song. The Foreign Language Film category, almost always a botch, had disqualified The Diving Bell and the Butterfly because its screenwriter is English and its director American. (That's Julian Schnabel, who still copped a Best Director nomination). Ang Lee's Chinese-language erotic thriller Lust, Caution was missing, as was The Romanian drama 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, the Palme d'Or winner at Cannes and a near-unanimous critics' fave. The snubbing of these well-known films left room for five films (four from Eastern Europe) that even most reviewers haven't heard of. Zut alors!

Names everyone has heard of were left off the finalists' list. Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts were snubbed for their adept roles in Charlie Wilson's War. (Sorry, too entertaining.) Brad Pitt had a scuzzy majesty as Jesse James, and his missus was nobly agonized in A Mighty Heart, but neither Bra nor ngelina was nominated. Meanwhile, foreigners flourished: nine of the 20 acting slots went to the Brits, the Aussies and the tragic, singing Frenchwoman — Marion Cotillard, giving a Susan Hayward-meets-Judy Garland performance in La Vie en Rose. Sorry, Marion who? It's as if the voters thought, there might still be a strike, no big names will show up, so let's give the prizes to the honorable second tier.

It looks as though Oscar has stopped thinking of Joel and Ethan Coen as those smart-ass kids from Minnesota. After nearly a quarter-century making movies, they've arrived in style with No Country. It earned the brothers four nominations: three under the own names for Best Picture (i.e., producers), Direction and Screenplay, and with the pseudonym Roderick Jaynes for Editing. Now Blood-letter Paul Thomas Anderson is the potential upsetter; and Jason Reitman, 30-year-old son of Canadian comedy conglomerator Ivan Reitman, is the scion to watch.

You have to wonder who filled out the Academy ballots this year. A good portion of the membership is old enough to call John McCain "Kid." Did the old-timers really go for the ultra-violent No Country and Blood enough to give those two films the most nominations? I know of some octogenarian members who'd let their grandchildren do the voting, under the theory that the job should be done by people who'd actually seen the movies. But this is, by and large, a very Generation Y, double-frappuccino list. The main exceptions are Atonement, an old-fashioned period romance with a modernist endgame, and the supporting acting nominations for Hal Holbrook, 82, and Ruby Dee, 83. Not to forget, so to speak, Away from Her, the Alzheimer's drama with Julie Christie. I imagine the elder members saying, "Let's vote for, you know, that movie about the thing, with that Darling girl in it."

Perhaps the kids in the house did vote for Away from Her, since it was directed by Sarah Polley, who turned 28 this month; Polley also got a nomination for Adapted Screenplay. A slot for Best Actress slot was filled by Juno's Ellen Page, the 20-year-old Nova Scotian, and for Supporting Actress, Saoirse Ronan, 13, as the girl whose first view of sex shocks her into a lie that outlives its victims.

I wrote in today's Predictions box that voters might not want to give an Oscar to an actress so young, figuring she had a lifetime to win one. And now I think: what a mistake it is to defer any award to a worthy achiever of any age. Two years ago, Heath Ledger's brilliantly opaque performance in Brokeback Mountain just missed getting Best Actor. He was 26 then. And now he's dead.

[pstough]

A few interesting facts about this year's nominations:

This is the first year since the supporting actor/actress categories were created that only one film (Michael Clayton) has received more than one acting nomination.

A total of 18 films received acting nominations. This appears to be the highest number in Oscar history.

The previous record holder was 1992, when 17 films received acting nominations (The Crying Game, Howards End, and Unforgiven each received two nominations).

The lowest number of films to receive acting nominations in a given year since 1936 occurred in 1981, when only 9 films received acting nominations. Reds (4), On Golden Pond (3), and Only When I Laugh (3) together received half of the acting nominations given out that year.

[OscarGuy]

On the Supporting Actor precursors front? It's the same as Supporting Actress. Never look to critics for the be-all-end-all decision making.

Jackie Earle Haley, Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Ben Kingsley/Steve Buscemi, Billy Bob Thornton all in the last ten years came off streaks to lose at the Oscars. Church is probably the best comparison since he was from a critically-loved film and had an impressive streak of precursors, but still lost.

Tim Robbins, Chris Cooper, Benicio Del Toro are good examples of critically-acclaimed performances carrying over to Oscar, so it works both way and is more common than Supporting Actress, but still proof that critics leaders most of the time don't translate to Oscar winners.

And Supporting Actor in recent years has been more "career" oriented than Supporting Actress. James Coburn, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman and Alan Arkin, and, to a lesser extent, Jim Broadbent are the ones to do it in the last 10 years.

Supporting Actress, on the other hand, only has Judi Dench and like with Jim Broadbent, I don't think it was really a career honor more than a "lots of great recent work" award.

But, it will be intersting I think both Hal Holbrook and Ruby Dee could benefit from the year's anniversary. I still think far more people are mindful of the anniversary notice than you think. There's no chance to set a record anywhere but there (except maybe to honor Blanchett in lead for a role she lost for in 1998), so it's entirely possible that several members could see this as a two-birds-with-one-stone result, giving two career honors to two of the oldest acting nominees ever.

And while we're at it, it appears that Hal Holbrook at 82 years and around 330 days is the oldest Best Supporting Actor nominee in history beating out Ralph Richardson who was nominated at 82 years, 49 days. If he won, he'd pass George Burns as the oldest by about 3 years.

Ruby Dee is definitely not the oldest, Gloria Stuart was 4 years older, but she does come in second as the oldest Supporting Actress nominee in history. If she won, she'd pass Peggy Ashcroft by almost 6 years.

With Supporting Actress having featuring some of the youngest performances ever, Saoirse Ronan comes in just being Anna Paquin and ahead of Bonita Granville as the 7th youngest ever nominated in Supporting Actress.

[Big Magilla]

Or the lack of support for Into the Wild in other categories could solidify the support behind Holbrook. It's an uphill battle, but stranger things have happened at the Oscars.