|
| ||
| Name: Ryan Roe Email: prawnrr-rmv@this.com-yahoo.com Position: Movie / Television / Comic Book / Trivia Geek View Ryan's Personal Profile |
| ||
| Hey, everybody! What’s four hours long, hosted by Ellen DeGeneres, and rhymes with “The Leaven-Bee-Rindth Manual Aglademy Zawards?” Give up? The answer is “the Oscars!” And they’re just two days away now. I’m not as invested in this year’s Oscar ceremony as I have been in years past, simply because I haven’t been able to see as many movies this year. Still, I’ll be watching, if only to see whether Borat and Peter O’Toole get to present an award together. I can only imagine what kind of unpredictable, delightfully outrageous ad-libs might come spilling out of that wacky guy’s mouth… Not to mention Borat! (Haw haw haw.) Scads of person have been clamoring for my predictions, and I don’t plan to disappoint anyone. Except maybe the people who are hoping I don’t make Oscar predictions. Sorry, guys, but here they are. Best Actor: This is a tough one. Ryan Gosling got great reviews for Half Nelson, but if he’s really that great an actor, why couldn’t he have made it a Full Nelson? Peter O’Toole might get it because he’s really old, but I’m going with Leonardo DiCaprio. Best Supporting Actor: Eddie Murphy. It’s going to be very strange when they can start adding “starring Academy Award winner Eddie Murphy!” to the promos for Norbit. I know this has already been said, but it seems like he surprised everyone by showing he could act in Dreamgirls, then decided to make Norbit just to remind us that his true talent still lies in completely unfunny comedies. Meanwhile, Jackie Earle Haley (of Little Children, formerly of The Bad News Bears) deserves an award for most unexpected career comeback, and it’s good to see Alan Arkin nominated for his finest work since Sesame Street’s Larry & Phyllis sketches. Outstanding Achievement in Underwater Breath-Holding: It’s a tie: Paul Giamatti in Lady in the Water and the entire cast of Poseidon Best Actress: Helen Mirren for The Queen. She did an incredibly convincing British accent! I actually had the opportunity to see The Queen on a plane (no relation to Snakes on a Plane), but chose not to, for two reasons. First, movies are never as good on planes, and b) I didn’t want to pay two bucks for cheap airline headphones. From what I could see, though, it looked like Mirren spent most of the movie looking dour. She did a darn fine job of it, I’m sure. Kate Winslet is nominated in this category (her fifth Oscar nomination!). It’s kind of cool that she and her Titanic co-star Leo are nominated in the same year. I can’t be the only geek who notices things like that. Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Hudson. She’s a former American Idol loser. When she wins, Ruben Studdard is going to seriously question what he’s doing with his career. As for Justin Guarini, he—never mind. Broadsidebarn. Nakedest Actress: Dallas Bryce Howard gave it a good effort in Lady in the Water-- and from what I hear, so did Rinko Kikuchi in Babel, but The Notorious Bettie Page’s Gretchen Mol will take this award. Baldest Actress: Natalie Portman for V for Vendetta Best Animated Feature: I hear Monster House was pretty good, but Cars will throw this award in its trunk and drive off with it. It had Paul Newman and pretty scenery. I saw Cars at a drive-in, which led to a strange meta moment during the scene in which the cars go to a drive-in to see movies about cars. The other nominee in this category, Happy Feet, was not a good movie. It’s kind of amazing the way I like it less every time I think about it. That thing had no idea what kind of movie it wanted to be, or what story it wanted to tell. Most Unnecessary Scene, Like, Ever: Borat Best Art Direction: I really don’t know. Maybe The Prestige, a movie about magicians, will pull an Oscar out of its hat on Sunday night! Ha ha! Okay, I’ll stop. Best Cinematography: Children of Men. I hear both the children and the men are very nicely lit. Best Vomiting Frog: Pan’s Labyrinth Best Costume Design: Once again, I look at the nominees and say, “Man, I didn’t see anything this year.” I did see School for Scoundrels. Is that nominated for anything? Anyway, Dreamgirls looks to have some authentic and pretty 1960s costumes, so I expect it to win. Best Documentary Feature: A good documentary will get people talking. Jesus Camp did that, but not to the extent of An Inconvenient Truth. Heck, Al Gore’s global warming movie is the number one reason I moved to New York City, so I could contribute less to pollution by taking mass transit. Okay, that’s false. But who would have ever thought a movie consisting of a guy giving a slide show could be so gripping? Coming in 2008: Our Vacation to Branson, Missouri: The Movie! The Steve Martin Honorary Award for Slummin' It: Steve Martin in The Pink Panther Best Documentary Short: The Blood of the Yingzhou District. I don’t know anything about the nominees, so I just went with the one that sounds the most depressing. Best Editing: This is a tough one. Babel has parallel storylines like last year’s winner Crash, but I’ve heard good things about United 93. I’m going to go with Babel. Unless United 93 wins, in which case that was my prediction the whole time. I may even do some editing of my own, of this journal, to reflect that. Heh heh heh. Best Foreign Language Film: Pan’s Labyrinth. It’s the only film in this category I’ve seen, and I think it should have been nominated for Best Picture. Phattest Girlz: Phat Girlz Best Makeup: Pan’s Labyrinth, for making one guy look like two completely different monsters. Without noses! But why is Click nominated here? Never mind, I just looked it up—did you know that the role of David Hasselhoff was played by a heavily made-up Kate Beckinsale? Best Score: Javier Navarrete, Pan’s Labyrinth. Maybe I’m predicting this film in too many categories because I liked it. But the music was consistently haunting, like the leftover pizza in my refrigerator. Best Song: In a world where Three 6 Mafia can win for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” anything can happen, but it’s a pretty sure bet that Dreamgirls, with three of the five nominations, will take home an award. For the song “Listen,” let’s say. You know, Dolly Parton gave a really good performance at last year’s ceremony. They should let her sing one of the Dreamgirls songs, just for the heck of it. Best Animated Short: The Little Matchgirl. I think it’s a cartoon about a little girl who sets up lonely singles on dates. Best Giant Gorilla Ice Choreography: You may remember that last year this award went to King Kong. This year I’m pretty certain it’ll go to The DaVinci Code. For that one scene. Best Short: Eramos Pocos. I’d like to apologize to the filmmakers for not being able to find the accented capital E on my special character map. Best Sound Editing: This is a tough one. I’m going to go with Letters From Iwo Jima, under the baseless assumption that its whizzing bullets and explosions are more impressive than those of Flags of Our Fathers, Blood Diamond, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, and—wait, are there whizzing bullets and explosions in Apocalypto? Or is it all bows and arrows and stuff? Best Sound Mixing: Dreamgirls Awesomest Scene Involving the Throwing of a Piano: Superman Returns, setting a new standard for all cinematic piano throws to come. Best Visual Effects: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. For giving Bill Nighy some wicked living facial tentacles, thus saving him the major inconvenience of growing his own. Best Adapted Screenplay: As it’s one of the few multi-nominated films I’ve seen, I want Little Children to win something, and this is its best bet. Children of Men will probably get it, though. I guess the point I’m trying to make is: A movie containing the word “children” will win this award. Best Original Screenplay: The Queen Best Butt-Kicking by a Tiny Senior Citizen: Scrappy little Mickey Rooney in Night at the Museum. Fun fact: It wasn’t actually in the script for Rooney to beat up Ben Stiller. It just happened on the set one day and the cameras happened to be rolling. Best Director: Martin Scorsese. Come on, Academy. Give the guy a break. Although at this point, he might rather just join the “Can you believe they never won an Oscar?” ranks of Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles. That would be something of an honor too, right? No, he’d probably rather have the award. Best Picture: This is a tough one. I’m looking at The Departed to have a victory De-Party on Sunday night, because I think it’ll get the biggest piece of the voter pie, although no single film will gorge itself on the pie and feel sick afterward. If it’s not The Departed, it’ll be Babel. Little Miss Sunshine is the only nominee I’ve seen, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, but oddly enough, I hope it doesn’t win. It’s just not a Best Picture-caliber film. So watch the Oscars on Sunday, on some network or another. ABC, I think. Count the number of people whose acceptance speeches get cut off, and marvel at how many people in the death montage are people whose deaths you’d forgotten about. Then stay tuned for my follow-up post, which will show up here as soon as I get my act together. Comments on this post are closed. |
| ||
| I LIVE for that yearly death montage. That's the whole reason I still watch the Oscars! That and the Irving G. Thalberg award montage. |
| ||
| Oh, <i>Happy Feet</i>. What a waste of $. <i>Peter O’Toole might get it because he’s really old</i> Don't diss my man Peter. |
| ||
| Sara: Yes, I remember your love of the dead people. It'll be weird this year to see Anna Nicole Smith in among people like Betty Comden and Ian Richardson. That's assuming Smith's roles in "The Naked Gun 33 1/3" and "Skyscraper" qualify her for inclusion. Tamar: Do you think we would have liked Happy Feet more if we hadn't been sitting in the second row at the IMAX? Probably not. Also, I'm not doubting that Peter O'Toole was good in "Venus." I'm just saying that if he wins, it'll mostly be because he's veteran actor Peter O'Toole. |
| ||
| I'm ashamed to admit this, but I can actually explain why "Click" was nominated. Spoiler Alert! (On the off chance someone still really wants to see this some day)...anyway, the end involves the main character accidentally fast-forwarding really far into the future. Thus, we get to see Adam Sandler, Kate Beckinsale, David Hasselhoff and Sean Astin in old-age makeup. And David Hasselhoff in old-age makeup is about as entertaining as anything else in the movie. |
| ||
| I'd like to take this opportunity to commend myself for being so very out of the loop that I had no idea that "Pan's Labyrinth" was a foreign language film. And for coming in second in last night's Oscar pool nonetheless. |
| ||
| Jason: That makes sense. Did it look real? Michal: At what point did you realize Pan's Labyrinth was not in English? Also, your performance in the Oscar pool was stunning, especially considering all the upsets you correctly predicted. I was quite disappointed you didn't win... mostly because I was hoping you would buy me ice cream to celebrate your winnings. |
| ||
| The old-age makeup looked pretty convincing. Until the makeup montage during the Oscars, though, I had completely forgotten that he wore a fat suit as well. Shows how memorable the movie was, I suppose. While I'm bad-mouthing movies, let me just say...Happy Feet? Seriously?! That's got to be one of the worst movies to ever win an Academy Award. And while I enjoyed Dreamgirls, and Jennifer Hudson did an OK job, I'm not convinced she's Oscar material either (especially not in her first movie, and up against some of those other talented nominees). It's kind of like you used to say about John Lithgow winning all his Emmys...it seems to be not about who does the best acting, but who does the MOST acting. Way, way too much emoting. |
| ||
| News News Archives Files Polls Journals Profiles Statistics Recent Comments |
| ||
All Journals
| ||