Popdose: Footnote

The only one of the 15 movies opening in New York today that may be worth seeing.

Popdose: Top 10 for 2011

Hangin' with Tom Cruise as I (finally) tackle a Top 10 movie list for Popdose, just in time for tonight's thing. Check my Twitter feed below for my Oscar picks and cast your ballot accordingly.

Popdose: The Oscar Nominated Short Films 2012

The long and the "short" of it this year, including Ciaran Hinds and Kerry Condon at The Shore.

Popdose: 2012 Oscar nominations

Extremely loud and incredibly close analysis featuring, who else, The Artist.

And the winner was...

...me, with 17-24, not great (I think my personal best was 22) but enough to win my Oscar pool in a year where no one film dominated, except perhaps Inception in the below-the-line categories. Tom Hooper's win and Roger Deakins' loss were sore points, mitigated by the shut-out of the overrated and overnominated True Grit and the near-checkmating of the puzzlingly embraced Black Swan. The King's Speech beating out The Social Network means more bleating and posturing from the near-dead Harvey Weinstein (that he's recutting the film to earn a yet more lucrative PG-13 after his bold no-cuts stance on Blue Valentine is outrageously schizophrenic hypocrisy) but it's not a Crash/Brokeback Mountain fiasco.

Otherwise a nice night to be out again with my peeps (first time since 2008) and no major complaints about the elegant and dark-toned, to the point, pro forma telecast, which did fit in more names than usual for the In Memoriam tribute (sorry, Tura Satana!).

My losses: Best Director (grrr), Animated Short, Live Action Short, Cinematography (double grrr), Costume Design, Score, and Sound Mixing.

My Oscar ballot

You'll find one up at Popdose. As for my picks:

Picture: The King's Speech

My Preference: The Social Network

Actor: Colin Firth

Actress: Natalie Portman

(My Preference: Annette Bening)

Supporting Actor: Christian Bale

Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo

(My Preference: Amy Adams)

Director: David Fincher

Adapted Screenplay: The Social Network

Original Screenplay: The King's Speech

(My Preference: The Fighter)

Animated Feature: Toy Story 3

Foreign Language Film: In a Better World

Documentary Feature: Inside Job

Documentary Short: Strangers No More

Animated Short: Day & Night

Live Action Short: Na Wewe

Art Direction: Alice in Wonderland

Cinematography: Roger Deakins

Costume Design: The King's Speech

Editing: The Social Network

Makeup: The Wolfman

Original Score: Inception

Original Song: "We Belong Together"

Sound Editing: Inception

(My Preference: Unstoppable)

Sound Mixing: The King's Speech

(My Preference: Inception)

Visual Effects: Inception

Popdose: Up in the Air on DVD

Oscar nominees George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, and Anna Kendrick give Jason Reitman's observant comedy a lift as it takes off on DVD.

16

Not my worst Oscar showing (that may have been last year's 14) but far from my best--when will we have another Return of the King-type sweep? The big categories were locked-and-loaded and had been for months (oh, Sandra!); I fell down on the shorts, cinematography, adapted screenplay, foreign film, etc. Serves me right looking to The House Next Door for guidance to fill in my blanks. Oh, well. There's a broken wrist for every handprint outside Grauman's Chinese, or something. Oscar season fatigue seems to have extended to the show itself, a listless affair--and those mawkish actors' tributes to their peers (plus that intro to the Top 10) have got to go (the Brits must find them excruciating in the extreme). With nothing pithy or insightful to say, I say, "Next!"

My Oscar ballot

"Let's shoot this fucker!"--Oscar winner Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi in 1994's Ed Wood

PICTURE: The Hurt Locker
ACTOR: Jeff Bridges
ACTRESS: Sandra Bullock
SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christoph Waltz
SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Mo'Nique
DIRECTOR: Kathryn Bigelow
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: Up in the Air
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Inglourious Basterds
ANIMATED FEATURE: Up
FOREIGN LANGUAGE: The White Ribbon
FILM EDITING: The Hurt Locker
ORIGINAL SONG: "The Weary Kind"
ORIGINAL SCORE: Up
CINEMATOGRAPHY: The Hurt Locker
ART DIRECTION: Avatar
COSTUME DESIGN: The Young Victoria
SOUND MIXING: Avatar
SOUND EDITING: The Hurt Locker
VISUAL EFFECTS: Avatar
MAKEUP: Star Trek
DOCUMENTARY: The Cove
DOCUMENTARY SHORT: China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province
ANIMATED SHORT: A Matter of Loaf and Death
LIVE ACTION SHORT: Instead of Abracadabra

TCM, incidentally, is counter-punching the kudosfest by airing the glass-mountain-of-success camp classic The Oscar (1966) tonight at 8pm. "I hope the Oscar keeps you warm on cold nights!"

Popdose: Sandra Bullock revisited

Rebooting and revisiting a three-year-old blog post as my crush object prepares her Oscar speech. "I'd like to thank Bob Cashill at Between Productions..."

Oscars: More MOR than ever

Last year the movie world trembled when it was announced that the number of Best Picture Academy Awards would double from five to ten, returning it to where it had been in the mid-1940s. The intent--to jack up the ratings for the sagging telecast by pulling in the likes of The Dark Knight--was purely commercial, a move to placate the popcorn picture crowd that's illiterate about, say, The Reader. Not a terrible idea; maybe Star Trek would get in. Then, the second thoughts, the doubts, the night terrors--would the Globe-winning Hangover get nominated? Or something even...worse?

The fears were allayed this morning. While I wouldn't have minded a big broad hit like either of those two to compete the whorehouse is secure...and Oscar is more middle-of-the-road than ever. The overrated District 9 and The Blind Side (picture), which I'm now obliged to see, are the only challenges to the established order, and don't pack all that much rooting interest. Why not, say, the edgy-charming (500) Days of Summer, 2009's only real indie success/surprise story, and a movie to pull in the prized younger demographic that made it a hit in the first place?

Unless Transformers hottie Megan Fox reprises Pink's hot wet dance Grammys number at the Oscars expect the ratings to go up not much more than a tick, as lovers of A Serious Man and An Education wheel themselves in front of the TV at the retirement center. Kidding: All things considered it's not a bad list, and not so different from my own Top Ten, but the wow factor just isn't there. What was the point?

A few thoughts:

So I'm stuck seeing The Blind Side, though I'm pleased at the rehabilitation of my long-faltering crush object Sandra Bullock.

Jeremy Renner, Christopher Plummer, fist bumps!

I've never missed a Peter Jackson picture but The Lovely Bones may be it, sorry, Stanley Tucci--why not a nod for Julie & Julia? (Jackson gets the District 9 nods as a consolation prize for its failure.)

Matt Damon? Invictus? Seriously? Not going to see an Eastwood picture that his acolytes in the press wrote off. The hoariest nomination was Freeman's.

Maybe its tiny distributor will give The Messenger the chance to deliver a few more viewers.

Maggie Gyllenhaal, Anna Kendrick, Vera Farmiga, nice going, too bad about the Mack truck in front of you.

More kudos: Nick Hornby and the In the Loop writers, keeping the British end up in a more American-centric field than usual.

A surprise to see some tech love for The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. On the other hand it's Avatar all the way in seven of its nine categories, with Hurt Locker stealing director and picture thunder.

I hate to say it, but Sherlock Holmes really did have the most flavorful score of the year. I may need reminding on Fantastic Mr. Fox, though.

Disney's at it again, swiping Best Song noms. But "The Weary Heart" is a lock.

The Secret of Kells? What?

A Prophet (une prophete) is the best foreign-language film I've seen in recent months. Riveting.

The Cove for Best Doc. Dead dolphins, tears, outrage.

Best title: A Matter of Loaf and Death (Animated Short).

The Oscars air March 7.

Popdose: Why I Heart Jeff Bridges

Will the fifth time be the charm for perennial Oscar hopeful Jeff Bridges? Stay tuned for Tuesday, but in the meantime a look back at the career of the quintessential American actor and his Crazy Heart.

Oscars suggestion

To cut the running time down further, simply mail Mo'Nique and Christoph Waltz their statuettes. After an avalanche of critics awards the Golden Globes confirms that without even being nominated yet they're shoo-ins to win. Hell, maybe develop a story where their evil characters from Precious and Inglourious Basterds meet in the late 80s and plot world destruction. Perhaps not, but it's a little off-putting to the home punter when there's a lock two months before the actual event, even if it does assure you two points in your Oscar pool (maybe three if you go with Jeff Bridges, who seems pretty solid this year to get a fifth nomination and an overdue prize). Though I like both for various reasons cause for concern is Avatar blanking The Hurt Locker last night--but the Globes don't mean anything, right?

More Best Pictures

From Tinseltown comes word that the Academy Awards are turning back the clock and allowing 10 pictures to contend for Best Picture, rather than five, which is how it's been since 1944. This means that audience favorites like The Dark Knight will get a shot, and pictures like WALL-E, scrap-heaped to the so-called "animation ghetto," may crawl their way out. Which will of course goose ratings.

On the plus side, it may also give well-regarded indies and movies that just missed it (like Revolutionary Road) a chance in the limelight. On the downside, it diminishes the prestige of the nomination, and has the potential to add God knows how many more minutes to the telecast. In an off year will there be a top 10 to nominate? (In an on year these days are there really five? 2009 isn't shaping up to be another 1939.) I assume that one reason the number was halved originally was to prevent the less-than-immortal One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937) and One Foot in Heaven (1941) from getting one foot in the door toward Oscar gold.

Razzies (and the other stuff) announced

The Happening really is that bad. Here Mark Wahlberg says, "Wasn't I just an Oscar nominee two years ago?"

As for that other thing...I'm cogitating on an Oscars post for Popdose.com tomorrow, as well as a Top 10 list and other film-in-2008 listage and errata. (Why does it take so long for the Academy to provide a complete list of nominees?) I have just one thing to say: The Reader?

(As it happens, Popdose pipped me to the post on this. I did add some comments to the list. I'm not sure how much more time I wanted to spend on this, frankly--a tepid year yielded lukewarm nominees, and I can feel the telecast's ratings plummeting as I write.)

You won't remember this

As usual, you're unlikely to be singing these in the shower anytime soon as Oscar's Best Song hopefuls are announced. The big-screen High School Musical sequel (pictured, as you might have guessed) has 11 (!) entrants--original, screen-written musicals take note--but thank our lucky stars the Academy is only letting two songs from the same film be eligible anymore, killing off chances for a medley (which, admittedly, could be campy fun). The rest ain't exactly ringing bells: "Another Way to Die" (Quantum of Solace) is like coitus interruptus, "Gran Torino" doesn't recover till Jamie Cullum takes over from Clint Eastwood (but to see Eastwood perform it live!), and who remembers the new Beyonce song amidst all those Cadillac Records covers? Slumdog Millionaire's Bollywood-inflected tunes are favored for the multi-culti hipness factor. However that plays out, I think Beyonce and the Grammys guard (Peter Gabriel for Wall-E, Springsteen for The Wrestler) have more of a shot than the toe-tappers from Pride and Glory and Repo! The Genetic Opera.

Another losing night

Not for the Coen brothers (pictured), but for me: I went 14-24 last night, equalling my record-poor showing of last year. And my point total only started climbing in the third hour. I need another easy, one-movie-takes-all year; my two wins were for the Titanic and Return of the King ceremonies.

Not a bad show, but not the killer evening of post-writer's strike TV everyone seemed to be counting on. Host Jon Stewart should be retained, if not for his material (middling funny) but his graciousness in allowing Once co-winner Marketa Irglova precious airtime to speak. Classy. If their song hadn't won I would've hurled my show through my friend's TV; the Enchanted numbers are cute in the film, where they are delivered a little satirically, but numbing served up straight onstage, even with Amy Adams and Kristin Chenoweth wrapping their pipes around them. The sounds of bathroom doors swinging open and bladders being emptied as they came on could be heard all across the land. Rule change: One nomination per songwriting team, please.

Otherwise, The Golden Compass whomping Transformers for visual effects was a nice surprise--the better picture won, though the latter is (for now) the highwater mark of merging reel and real. I guess the voters just hate the "awesome" Michael Bay.

The foreign-born actors' quartet (the first since 1964; give us your poor huddled performers, yearning to breathe free) are an acceptable lot, though Amy Ryan easily outdoes Tilda Swinton in Gone Baby Gone (best performance in any category this year, drinking even Day-Lewis' milkshake if anyone recalls that past-due catchphrase) and Marion Cotillard does far more for the overrated La Vie en Rose than the picture does for her. Oscar notwithstanding, I'd love to reedit that picture coherently, allowing the performance to build step-by-step. In that regard Juno is a far superior vehicle for its star turn, my favorite in that category.

[I got rapped for saying it was "back to obscurity" for Cotillard after the obligatory Hollywood assignment or two. She's lovely and talented, etc., but it's hard to see her building much of an international career if she chooses to. Maybe "back to the arthouse," a nicer way of saying the same thing, might have been the more gentlemanly comment.]

One thing it was great to see: Three actors winning for original, ground-up work, not a bunch of biopic recreation jobs.

Snap decisions

Predicted winners for the 80th Annual Academy Awards, subject to rethinking before the February 24 ceremony. I moved quickly through the list, but if the writers' strike hasn't let up by then it will take you longer to read this than it will to watch the actual event, much like the glitter-free Golden Globes. Let's get this settled, guys; America is counting on a full plate four-hour plate of banter, musical numbers, montages, and speeches thanking God next month.

Best Picture: No Country for Old Men.

Personal favorite: Michael Clayton.

Garbage nomination: None. It's an appealing smorgasbord.

Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis

Personal favorite: Day-Lewis, but Mortensen was a pleasant surprise.

Garbage nomination: I wouldn't tell him to his face, but Tommy Lee Jones sleepwalks through the Valley. Better his more alert supporting turn in No Country.

Best Supporting Actor: Javier Bardem (pictured)

Personal favorite: Hal Holbrook

Garbage nomination: None. A flavorful slate, highlighted by Holbrook, but Bardem has the momentum.

Best Actress: A tough one. Today: Marion Cotillard. Tomorrow: Ellen Page, riding high on Juno. Thursday: the delicate Julie Christie. (No chance for Linney but I'm happy that The Savages got some traction.)

Personal favorite: All things considered, Page.

Garbage nomination: Blanchett. I enjoyed the hokey film but once was enough for HRH in the superior predecessor.

Best Supporting Actress: Amy Ryan.

Personal favorite: Ryan

Garbage-ish nomination: Much as I hate to consign Ruby Dee to the rubbish bin I can't abide seeing American Gangster anywhere near the rest of a more deserving crop. The song, not the singer, but she and Holbrook are a couple of old school charmers.

Best Director(s): The Coen Brothers.

Personal favorite: I'll stick with the Coens.

Garbage nomination: None. I'm not that broken up that Tim Burton didn't nab a slot (that he revived his flagging career is reward enough), though Juno really is a matter of writerly tone.

Best Original Screenplay: Diablo Cody.

Personal favorite: Tony Gilroy.

Garbage nomination: Lars and the Real Girl is a questionable choice, more an actor's showcase.

Adapted Screenplay: Christopher Hampton

Personal favorite: Hampton

Garbage nomination: None. A strong field.

Animated Feature: Persepolis. Worthy, good for you.

Personal favorite: Ratatouille.

Garbage nomination: I haven't seen Surf's Up, but which of these doesn't belong?

Best Foreign Language Film: Beaufort. Not that I've seen it. Voters may be an Israel frame of mind this year,

Personal favorite: Nil.

Garbage nomination: Given the quality of the films shut out, these had better be damned good. The year's Garbage category, as it often is.

Best Art Direction: Atonement.

Personal favorite: Sweeney Todd.

Garbage nomination. The dim and underdesigned American Gangster. The Golden Compass earned its shot.

Best Cinematography: The Assassination of...blah blah blah. With two nominations it should be Deakins' to lose.

Personal favorite: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Garbage nomination. None. Let there be light.

Documentary Feature: No End in Sight.

Personal favorite: No End in Sight.

Garbage nomination: None, but a little war-heavy. There are other subjects.

Documentary Short: I'm guessing Sari's Mother, developed from last year's excellent Iraq in Fragments.

Animated Short and Live Action Short: No opinion. I'll guess once I have some idea what they are.

Best Visual Effects: Transformers. It is what it is.

Personal favorite: The Golden Compass.

Garbage nomination: Nothing new in Pirates III.

Best Costume Design: Sweeney Todd.

Personal favorite: Sweeney Todd.

Garbage nomination: None.

Best Film Editing, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing. I'd say two out of three, maybe a sweep, for Bourne Ultimatum, though I found the film editing too sensational.

Best Original Score: Only Atonement stands out for me. An eh category.

Best Original Song: "Falling Slowly," from Once.

Personal favorite: "Falling Slowly."

Garbage nominations: One of the Enchanted songs ("Happy Working Song," I think) was quite enough as Disney hogs the nominations as usual.

Best Makeup: La Vie en Rose.

Personal favorite: La Vie en Rose.

Garbage nomination: Norbit, I know, but it's the great Rick Baker so it flies. Pirates, move on.

How many have you heard?

Variety has a "set list" of the 59 songs eligible for Best Song at next year's Oscars. My personal frontrunners, the two from Once ("Falling Slowly" and "If You Want Me") haven't been far from my CD player since I picked up the soundtrack last summer, and Eddie Vedder's music for Into the Wild also leaves a favorable impression. Somehow I don't think the tunes from The Water Horse, the marauding Mormon epic September Dawn, The Last Mimzy, and the obscure 56 Drops of Blood (described on CD Universe as the "musical that brings the story of Romeo and Juliet into the chaos of the Hungarian revolution in 1956") will be joining the Hollywood Hit Parade anytime soon.