If I could've cast a vote...

I'm tired. Soooooo tired. And I have a sense of failure for not completely reviewing this years crop of Academy Award nominated films. But I'm soooo tired.....

OK. Here's my where my vote would be cast, if I had a vote. I'm not saying who should win, I'm not saying who will win. Oscar predictions are so 2007. I shall not vote for a film I did not see. So here goes. Films I saw in bold. Winner in large print. I have no opinion on Short Film, Live Action of Animated, Documentary Short Subject, or Foreign Language Film. I saw none of them. I'm such a slacker...


Best Documentary, Feature

The Betrayal - Nerakhoon
Encounters at the End of the World
The Garden
Man on Wire
Trouble the Water


Best Animated Film of the Year

Bolt
Kung-Fu Panda
Wall-E


Best Visual Effects

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man


Best Sound Editing

The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
Wanted


Best Sound

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
Wanted


Best Original Song

Slumdog Millionaire - Jai Ho
Slumdog Millionaire - O Saya
Wall-E - Down to Earth


Best Original Score

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Defiance
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E


Best Makeup

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Hellboy II: The Golden Army


Best Costume Design

Australia
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Duchess
Milk
Revolutionary Road


Best Art Direction

Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road


Best Editing

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire


Best Cinematography

Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire


Best Adapted Screenplay

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Frost/Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire


Best Original Screenplay

Frozen River
Happy-Go-Lucky
In Bruges
Milk
Wall-E


Best Supporting Actress

Amy Adams - Doubt
Penelope Cruz - Vicky Christina Barcelona
Viola Davis - Doubt
Taraji P. Henson - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marissa Tomei - The Wrestler


Best Supporting Actor

Josh Brolin - Milk
Robert Downey Jr. - Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Doubt
Heath Ledger - The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon - Revolutionary Road


Best Actress

Anne Hathaway - Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie - Changeling
Melissa Leo - Forzen River
Meryl Streep - Doubt
Kate Winslet - The Reader


Best Actor

Richard Jenkins - The Visitor
Frank Langella - Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn - Milk
Brad Pitt - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke - The Wrestler


Best Director

Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry - The Reader
David Fincher - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard - Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant - Milk


Best Picture

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire


OOOOHHHHHHHH!!! Bet You didn't see that last on coming, eh! BAM!!
Yep. I think they were close to being equal, Slumdog and Button, but in the end, Benjamin Button moved me a bit more. Just barely. So Slumdog gets Director and Screenplay, Button gets Picture. Goodnight Folks!

NOW GIVE ME SOME CANDY!

Put a fork in me....

I'm done with the reviews for this years Oscars. Due to the increasing demands form work, daddy day care, and my amateur tennis career, I just don't have the time to get to the theaters to see anymore of this years nominees.

So I will go into the weekend having not seen (nominations in parenthesis)

Frost/Nixon (5)

The Reader (5)

Doubt (5)

Revolutionary Road (2)

The Wrestler (2)

Happy-Go-Lucky (1)

Australia (1)

Defiance (1)

Bolt (1)

There are some films I've seen on DVD that I just haven't gotten around to reviewing like

Changeling (3)

Frozen River (2)

The Duchess (2)

Hellboy 2 (1)

In Bruges (1)

The Visitor (1)

Tropic Thunder (1)

Kung-Fu Panda (1)

Man on Wire (1)

Soooo, Sometime this weekend I'll blog votes in all the categories. Tune in before Sunday night.

NOW GIVE ME SOME CANDY!

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON

Nominated for 13 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Director, Actor (Brad Pitt), Supporting Actress (Tarji P. Henson), Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Art Direction, Costumes, Makeup, Visual Effects, Sound, and Score.


Directed by David Fincher





Starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Julia Ormond, Tarji P. Henson, Tilda Swinton, Jared Harris



The Plot: "I was born under unusual circumstances." And so begins "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," adapted from the 1920s story by F. Scott Fitzgerald about a man who is born in his eighties and ages backwards: a man, like any of us, who is unable to stop time. We follow his story, set in New Orleans from the end of World War I in 1918, into the 21st century, following his journey that is as unusual as any man's life can be.

The Good: Button is the epic film that the Oscars love. It's this years Gone with the Wind, or Forrest Gump, or Titanic. A beautiful film where every turn of the camera draws your eyes to authentic looking sets filled with interesting characters. The New Orleans setting was very appealing to this homesick Louisiana boy. The performances by Pitt and Blanchett are great, especially considering all the ballet dancing Blanchett had to pull off. But what makes this a true best picture candidate is how it evolves from a "curious" period piece with a wacky theme to one that delivers multiple emotional shots to your gut. The decisions Benjamin are forced to make about his ability to raise his child while slowly de-aging into childhood himself are agonizing, and those of us who are parents are especially susceptible to falling apart during these scenes. They will make all but the most heartless bastards tear-up.

The Bad: The parallels to Forrest Gump are obvious, especially since the same guy wrote them both. Click Here to read a side by side comparison that's too long to post here.

The Ugly: That is one ugly, wrinkly baby. Let's be honest, all newborns are ugly. Baby's don't get cute until they're a few weeks old. But this baby is fugly. (Hehe, i haven't said fugly in a loooooong time.)

Movie Cheetah's Grade: A

Oscar Forecast: I'd vote for Button for best picture. I'm a huge fan of director David Fincher and he did a fantastic job on this film, but I'd give the director statue to Danny Boyle for Slumdog. Pitt won't win best actor but Tarji P. Henson has a great shot at supporting actress for her turn as the compassionate woman who raises Benjamin. It should win At Direction. But I think this film is first or second in all it's other nominations. It'll battle Slumdog for Cinematography, Editing and Adapted Screenplay. It's a close race with The Duchess for Best Costumes. And it should win makeup unless the Academy goes in another direction by rewarding the creature feature Hellboy 2. Probably won't beat the action films in Sound or Visual Effects.


The Producers are 6 time nominee Kathleen Kennedy {E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), The Color Purple (1985), The Sixth Sense (1999), Seabiscuit (2003) and Munich (2005)}, 5 time nominee Frank Marshall {Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Color Purple, The Sixth Sense, and Seabiscuit}, and first time nominee Cean Chaffin.


This is the first nomination for director David Fincher which is long overdue for the man who brought us Seven, Fight Club, and Zodiac.




This is Brad Pitt's second nomination after a Supporting Actor nod in 1995 for Twelve Monkeys.

Screenwriter Eric Roth won an Oscar in 1994 for Forrest Gump and was nominated for The Insider (1999) and Munich (2005), and the first nomination for screenwriter Robin Swicord
.

This is the first nomination for actress Taraji P. Henson, cinematographer Claudio Miranda, Editors Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, Art Director Donald Graham Burt, and Decorator Victor J. Zolfo.

Costume Designer Jacqueline West was also nominated for Quills (2000).

The Visual Effects team is comprised of Craig Barron, also nominated for Batman Returns (1992) and three Oscar rookies, Eric Barba, Steve Preeg, and Burt Dalton.



Makeup Artist Greg Cannom won Oscars for Dracula (1992) and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and was nominated for Hook (1991), Hoffa (1992), Roomates (1995), Titanic (1997), Bicentennial Man (1999) and A Beautiful Mind (2001).



The Sound team is made up of first time nominee Mark Weingarten, Ren Klyce, also nominated for Fight Club (1999), David Parker, winner for The English Patient (1996) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and nominated for Never Cry Wolf (1983) and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), and Michael Semanick, winner for Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) and King Kong (2005), and nominated for The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), Ratatouille (2007) and Wall-E (2008).


The score was composed by Alexander Desplat, who was also nominated for The Queen (2006).

SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE

Nominated for 10 Oscars including Best Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Sound Editing, Score and two nominations for Best Song.

Directed by Danny Boyle

Starring Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Saurabh Shukla

The Plot: The story of Jamal Malik, an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai, who is about to experience the biggest day of his life. With the whole nation watching, he is just one question away from winning a staggering 20 million rupees on India's "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" But when the show breaks for the night, police arrest him on suspicion of cheating; how could a street kid know so much? Desperate to prove his innocence, Jamal tells the story of his life in the slum where he and his brother grew up, of their adventures together on the road, of vicious encounters with local gangs, and of Latika, the girl he loved and lost. Each chapter of his story reveals the key to the answer to one of the game show's questions. Intrigued by Jamal's story, the jaded Police Inspector begins to wonder what a young man with no apparent desire for riches is really doing on this game show? When the new day dawns and Jamal returns to answer the final question, the Inspector and sixty million viewers are about to find out...

Wow. I don't think you watch Slumdog Millionaire. You experience it. It drags you in with a mystery of how does this kid know the answers, then plunges you down a rabbit hole into the shocking slums of Mumbai, all the while dazzling you with color and amazing camera work, and sustaining you with near nonstop beat of a kinetic score. You are treated to a hellish existence for an hour and forty five minutes, before a cheer worthy ending which will bring a tear to you eye and put some hope in your heart.

The Good: The film is a true film making achievement. The cinematography and editing are as good as any film ever made. Shot with handheld digital cameras in the actual slums. Just stop and try to comprehend the scope of filming in those conditions with that hundreds of people just wandering around. The film is perfectly cast, not just the two older stars, Dev Patel and Freida Pinto, and the smarmy game show host (Kapoor), but this may be the best performance by child actors I've ever seen. And they do things no child should have to. And the what an ending. And, stay for the best closing credits since Cannonball Run.

The Bad: Many will be horrified by the challenges the children face in order to survive the slums. It will turn off a great many viewers. But you have to look beyond that and realize everything in the film is crucial to the plot, and it's executed with the artistic hand of director Boyle.

The Ugly: Was the shit dive scene really necessary? C'mon, really?!? I know Boyle has a thing for this type of scene (remember Trainspotting?) but it was Ggggrrroosssss! (notice the capital G).

Movie Cheetah's Grade: A

Oscar Forecast: Slumdog seems to be the favorite to win best picture (though my vote would go to another film! more on that later), and it surly should win best director, Cinematography, Editing, and Score. Seriously the score is so compelling, I was tapping my feet the entire film. It may win Best Sound, but not Sound Editing. Whichever of the two songs nominated that plays over the credits should win the Best Song Oscar. The Adapted screenplay category is a true toss up. Good luck picking that category!

This is is the first Academy Award nomination for producer Christian Colson, director Danny Boyle, cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle, editor Chris Dickens, sound mixer Resul Pookutty (hehehe), sound re-recording mixers Ian Tapp and Richard Pryke, and supervising sound editors Glenn Freemantle and Tom Sayers.

Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy was previously nominated for The Full Monty (1997).

Composer A. R. Rahman scored three Oscar nominations for this film, one for the score, and two for co-writing the two song nominations. The song "O saya" was co-written by Maya Arulpragasam (otherwise known as M.I.A.) and the song "Jai Ho" was co-written by Gulzar.

WALL-E - Academy Awards Update!

Nominated for 6 Academy Awards including Animated Feature Film of the Year, Original Screenplay, Sound, Sound Editing, Score, and Song.



Directed by: Andrew Stanton



Read my full review of Wall-E here! Or rather, don't.


After re-watching Wall-e, I've completely changed my opinions on the film. I first saw the film in July with my son, at a noon showtime, in the ghetto Talley-Ho Theater in downtown Sleezeburg. It's got a tiny screen and seats no more than 50 people and I think I fell asleep a few times. Just goes to show you how the environment can change the experience of watching a film. This time it was in a dark room on my laptop, which has become my favored movie watching style. And I loved it.



The Good:
The animation quality of Pixar films is unmatched. Nothing looks this good. But Pixar's real secret weapon are the writers. They tell original stories free from cliches and pop culture references that bog down other popular animated films. There is real emotion here, hard to do with robots with limited vocabularies.


The Bad:
The "humans are destroying the earth with garbage" message is brought to the extreme here, but on second viewing I took more of a "it's just a plot device" view as opposed to the "this cartoon is getting preachy" view. Which let's you concentrate more on the action and visuals, which makes for a much more enjoyable movie watching experience.

The Ugly:
Big fat squishy humans. Uhhhgggg. I couldn't even find a screenshot of them on any of the promotional websites or Yahoo Movies. Another smart Pixar move.



MOVIE CHEETAH'S GRADE: A



Oscar Forecast:
Mark Wall-e down for at least 2 wins, Animated Feature and Sound Editing. The Sound editing is genius work. Ben Burtt and Matthew Wood are the real stars of this film as they invent every whir, buzz, and beep, and they convey emotion and conversation with them. Burtt also gave us the trademark WaaaAAAAlleeeeeee sound and was also the voice of Wall-E. Check out the mini-doc on the Sound Editing on the special features of the disc. Pure Genius.
The screenplay is better than Milk but maybe not In Bruges. Wall-E runs up against Slumdog Millionaire in Sound, Score and Song, all strong points of that film. They may pull Song since Slumdog's duel nominations aren't in English. But honestly the closing credits song on Slumdog is the best closing credits ever.


Director Andrew Stanton won A Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2003 for Finding Nemo and he has two original screenplay nominations for Nemo and Toy Story (1995).


The original screenplay nomination is shared between Stanton, Pete Doctor, who has 3 previous nominations for the screenplay of Toy Story (1995), co-directing Monsters, Inc. (2001) and the animated short Mike's New Car (2002). This is the first nomination for Jim Reardon.


The Sound Team is led by the legendary Ben Burtt. Check out this Oscar resume: special achievement awards for Star Wars (1977) and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Sound Effects Editing awards for E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). He also has Best Sound nominations for Return of the Jedi (1983), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Sound Effects Editing nominations for Return of the Jedi, Willow (1988), and The Phantom Menace (1999), and a Short Subject Documentary nomination for Special Effects: Anything Can Happen (1996). His team is made up of Michael Semanick, Oscar winner for The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) and King Kong (2005) and nominated for The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and Ratatouille (2007) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008). This is the first nomination for Tom Myers.


The Sound Effects Editing was done by Ben Burtt (see above) and Matthew Wood, nominated last year for There Will be Blood (2007).


Composer Thomas Newman did the score and he's been nominated a whopping 8 previous times without ever taking home an Oscar. His nominated work includes The Shawshank Redemption (1994), Little Women (1994), Unstrung Heroes (1995), American Beauty (1999), Road to Perdition (2002), Finding Nemo (2003), A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004), and The Good German (2006).


Newman also shares credit for Best Song, "Down to Earth," performed by first time nominee Peter Gabriel.

ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD

Nominated for Best Documentary Feature

Directed by Werner Herzog

The Plot:

Herzog travels to the Antarctic community of McMurdo Station, the headquarters for the National Science Foundation and home to eleven hundred people. There he studies those who want to step off the map and where everyone seem to be full-time travelers and part-time workers. Beyond the settlement, Herzog ventures from the under-ice depths of the Ross Sea to the brink of the Mount Erebus volcano.

The Good:

The best parts of this film are the interviews with people who actually live in Antarctica. The stories of how they ended up down there are fascinating. They all seem to be amateur philosophers seeking a peaceful way of life, from a former Wall Street Banker to an Indian claiming to be descended from Aztec Kings, to a guy who escaped from a Russian prison who keeps a fully packed survival backpack at all times in case he has to bug out. Now they are the plumbers, mechanics and bus drivers of McMurdo. There's also a funny part when Herzog, talking to a penguin specialist, asks him if there are gay penguins and insane penguins. Which there are! And penguin prostitutes! No lie!

The Bad:

The other parts of the film are not quite compelling. Herzog journeys to a few of the scientific stations and slips into long visually compelling sequences of underwater (and under ice) photography and frozen volcanic caves. While beautiful, they are long and set to this vocal chorus type music guaranteed to induce sleep.

The Ugly:

The film seems to lack direction. When it was over, i wondered what the hell was it really trying to say. It seems like Herzog had an opportunity to go to Antarctica, but couldn't come up with a cohesive story to tell. So he threw together the best footage he had.

There's this one part where an insane penguin heads off inland where he is doomed to perish. They said even of they went out to get the penguin, he would still try to keep on heading inland.

: ( Penguin Suicide is a big problem.

MOVIE CHEETAH'S GRADE: C

This is the first Academy Award nomination for director Werner Herzog and producer Henry Kaiser, but they should have gotten one for the fantastic documentary Grizzly Man (2005).

MILK

Nominated for 8 Academy Awards including Best Picture, Director, Actor (Sean Penn), Supporting Actor (Josh Brolin), Original Screenplay, Editing, Costumes, and Score.

Directed by Gus Van Sant

Staring Sean Penn, James Franco, Emile Hirsch, and Josh Brolin

The Plot:

On his 40th birthday, New Yorker Harvey Milk (Penn) picks up a young boy-toy (Franco) on the subway and decides to move to San Fransisco with him to live an openly gay life. He opens a camera store, becomes a community activist, organizer of the gay rights movement, and when he is elected city supervisor, the first openly gay elected official in America. I'm not giving anything away when I tell you he is assassinated along with the mayor of San Fransisco by a fellow city supervisor (Brolin).

The Good:

The film starts with news footage covering Milk's assassination then goes into a scene of Penn sitting alone in a kitchen leaving an "in case I'm killed" message on a tape recorder. It's haunting and powerful device to frame the story, and Penn shines in the simplicity of these scenes. Unfortunately, this device is mostly abandoned during the second act. The film also jumps back and forth from new cinematic footage of our cast to real 70's newsreel style footage of the people and events of San Fransisco. It really drives home that this is a true story and at times it's hard to tell what shots are new and what's old.

The Bad:

The film falls prey to the pitfalls of most biopics. For the greater part of the film, it lacks drama. It chronicles Harvey Milks life, friends, and elections, and even though the entire film is based on the conflict of the gay rights movement, it lacks convincing conflicts for it's characters. Only in the final 10 minutes, when Dan White (Brolin) is stalking the offices of City Hall and you know what's going to happen did it really grab my full attention. The rest is... boring.

The Ugly:

The undisguised bigotry of Anti-Gay activists Anita Bryant and John Briggs is stunning to someone of my generation. The gay rights theme runs through every scene of the film and gets tiring quickly. There must have been more stories from these characters that doesn't ram this issue down your throat. (he he he)

Milk was downright boring for me. The over abundance of man on man action honestly made me a little uncomfortable, and the film lacked tension or any real conflict until the end. One of the worst Best Picture nominations in years.

Movie Cheetah's Grade: C

Oscar Forecast:

Milk could be the biggest loser on Oscar night. I don't think it will take home a single statue. Penn offers it's best hope. He's the only Best Actor nominee with a previous win, but can he upset the juggernaut that is Mickey Rourke? Not likely.

If Milk wins Best Picture, the award would go to producers Dan Jinks and Bruce Cohen who took home a Best Picture statue in 1999 for American Beauty.

Director Gus Van Sant was previously nominated in 1997 for Good Will Hunting.

Sean Penn got his Oscar in 2004 for Mystic River. He was also nominated for Dead Man Walking (1995), Sweet and Lowdown (1999), and I Am Sam (2001).

I can't believe composer Danny Elfman has never won an Oscar. But he has been nominated three other times, for Good Will Hunting (1997), Men in Black (1997), and Big Fish (2003).

This is the first Academy Award nomination for actor Josh Brolin, screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, editor Elliot Graham and costume designer Danny Glicker.

VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA

Nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Penelope Cruz)

Directed by Woody Allen

Staring Scarlett Johansson, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, and Rebecca Hall

The Plot: Vicky (Hall) and Christina (Johansson) are two hot American twenty somethings that decide to spend a summer in Barcelona. They are approached by painter Juan Antonio (Bardem) who generously offers to take them around, show them the sites, wine and dine 'em, then make love to them. They accept (who wouldn't?). Much sexiness ensues. Add Juan Antonio's ex-wife Maria Elena (Cruz) and Vicky's fiancee to the mix and you have Allen's best film in decades.

The Good:
Never has a more gorgeous cast been assembled. Set them in Spain and this film just oozes beauty. The acting is very good and Allen's script rises to their talent. It starts as a frivolous talky romantic comedy but goes into a more dramatic direction by the end.

The Bad: There's a narration over most of the film. Sometimes a good narration can add to a film. Not here. It's a stuffy narration that spouts useless tidbit about minor characters and tells us things about the stars that could easily and more effectively been told in the film itself. I kept wanting that dude to just shut it.

The Ugly:
Nothing ugly about this film. except for it's wasted opportunity for some gratuitous nudity from Johansson or Cruz!

This film is really, really good. Allen's continued fascination with Europe (his 4th European film in a row) and Scarlett (3 out of those 4 films) is really starting to click. The actions of the characters breaks with conventions of love and lust and their performances ring true, sometimes powerfully so.

MOVIE CHEETAH'S GRADE: B

Oscar Forecast:
Cruz is wonderful here in a supporting turn as Juan Antonio's suicidal/genius ex-wife. A complex character that delivers line in Spanish and English, often bouncing between the two, it's the most impressive acting in a film full of superior performances. I haven't seen any other nominated performances in this category, but Cruz needs to hope Doubt's duel nominations cancel each other out and she can eek out a win vs Marissa Tomei who may not be talented enough to be a multiple Oscar winner.

This is the Penelope Cruz's second Oscar nom, after Volver (2007).