Cut the BS Breakdown - Best Picture

This is an unabashed look at each nominee in the big eight Oscar categories. We will look at all the nominees and the various categories. No prisoners are taken, so take heed and gird your loins.

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

Overall Feelings:
I would love a year where Best Picture isn’t a near-forgone conclusion. Everyone and their mother was predicting a Best Picture line-up of this save for The Reader. There is no drama, no surprises, it’s just going to happen like everyone expects. I almost thought about not writing this column for the same reason I didn’t write one for Best Animated Feature. I don’t see the merit of explaining why one film will win a prize that everyone knows will win but doesn’t deserve it. I would be interested to know what would happen if Slumdog Millionaire wasn’t in the running.

My Personal Choice:
Both Milk and The Reader made my Top 10 List, so it’s obviously between them. While The Reader had more emotional resonance with me, I still believe Milk is the better film. The narrative was more engaging, the actors excelled beyond the leads and the director took risks. I feel almost talked out at this point. That’s another problem with this Academy, they have a tendency to keep the same films in all categories. Variety would be a welcome thing.

Who Should Have Been Nominated:
This goes back to the argument between The Wrestler and The Dark Knight. This time, The Wrestler takes it. These films are neck-and-neck in my book, but The Wrestler just resonates a tad more with me. Be it Mickey Rourke’s tortured body after the staple match, Marisa Tomei’s perfectly complimentary performance, the extended deli counter scene, Marisa Tomei’s perfectly complimentary body or what is possibly the best ending of any movie in the past couple years. I just think about that film in a different way than The Dark Knight in that I have no idea how the characters end up at the end of the film, but I will eventually find out what happens next with Batman because of the inevitable sequel.

Who Should Not Have Been Nominated:
Frost/Nixon. Have I said anything yet about this film and my hatred of it? No? Oh, well check here and here.

Who Should Win:
As much as I like Milk, I’m saying The Reader just because I (unlike a whole mess of people) like the ridiculous campaigning of Harvey Weinstein. It shows passion in his films. I’m not exactly sure what the campaigning is for. Maybe it’s just to show directors and actors that he cares about their films. Maybe he has incentives built in. Who knows? By the way, I’ll say this today, but in a few years when a lesser film defeats the one I am passionate about, I’ll call Weinstein a cheat. I did the same thing in 1998 when Shakespeare in Love beat Saving Private Ryan. Still, in this case, The Reader is a quality film. At the time, I was mad at Shakespeare in Love, but I didn’t exactly love it (I was blinded by my fury at it’s win). But, looking at it now, it’s a really great film (though in no way compares to Saving Private Ryan). Still, I’m pulling for the 2005-like upset, but I don’t see it happening.

Who Will Win:
Like I said, I don’t see it happening. Slumdog Millionaire is just too much of a juggernaut and too much of a crowd-pleaser these days. This film will win based on the sole fact of perfect timing. It was the perfect, “little,” “feel-good” movie that involved a cult director and an international feel. It was released by the perfect studio at the perfect time to gain steam and maintain until Sunday.

A Best Picture Poem:
Frost/Nixon was boring,
A big waste of space,
I’d sure like to think,
It’ll come in 5th place.

Benjamin Button is,
As much as I could contend,
Three very long hours,
For an obvious end.

Milk is the best,
Of the Best Picture five,
Sean Penn is getting close,
To the greatest actor alive.

The Reader is worth the money,
Which I paid to see the flick,
I wished there was more Kate,
And absolutely no dick.

Slumdog got people happy,
As much as it got people pissed,
Underpaid kids is the least of their worries,
As the Oscar will not be missed.

Cut the BS Breakdown - Best Adapted Screenplay

This is an unabashed look at each nominee in the big eight Oscar categories. We will look at all the nominees and the various categories. No prisoners are taken, so take heed and gird your loins.

Nominees:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Eric Roth, Robin Swicord
Doubt, John Patrick Shanley
Frost/Nixon, Peter Morgan
The Reader, David Hare
Slumdog Millionaire, Simon Beaufoy

Overall Feelings:
One. I count one nominee that is worth being here. I’m not saying there was a plethora of choices when it came to adaptations, but my God…I want to personally thank David Hare and his script because he is the only one who deserves to be in the running. First off, Eric Roth has already won an Oscar for this script, and it was called Forrest Gump. This guy has a tendency to write schmaltzy, clichéd ideas and sometimes gets his just desserts (The Postman). He all fooled us in 1994, but retooling the story to fit with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story is just lazy. Next is Shanley. I don’t deny that Doubt is a well-written piece of entertainment, but I don’t understand what he did to covert this to film. Just because it is a well-written script on Broadway does not mean you can just take the carbon copy and film it to suit the needs of a film. The more I think about it, the less I think Shanley belongs with this group. Anyway…now we have Peter Morgan. I still fail to see the appeal of Frost/Nixon. Was it the fact that Frank Langella and Michael Sheen were so enthralling in the dual leads that we give praise to the film as a whole? I would love an explanation. The script is systematic, immensely forgetful and takes absolutely no risks. It avoids all character flaws and characterization in general and just focuses on the fact that Sheen and Langella were really good in the play. Finally, we come to Mr. Simon Beaufoy. I have yet to share my thoughts on Slumdog Millionaire, but it was an enjoyable experience. I liked the film as a whole and left with a smile on my face. That being said, if I were to rank these nominees in their quality, only Morgan would be worse. What made this film so memorable and the feel good story it was? Two things did. First, was the fact that it was a true story (sort of) and second and most importantly was the direction of Danny Boyle. Can you remember any dialogue from that movie? I can think of maybe three lines off the top of my head. The memories that stick with me are the visuals and the style it is presented in. This is a pure piggy-back nomination. The Academy couldn’t have played it any safer or been any more boring with this line-up.

My Personal Choice:
As I said, I want to personally thank David Hare and apologize to him for not being able to win the Oscar. The Reader is one of those rare films like The Dark Knight in which they are presented with a preconceived notion of what they are and then they turn out to be something so different and presented in a different way, that we are blown away by them. Just how The Dark Knight isn’t a comic book movie, The Reader isn’t a holocaust film. It molds into a brilliant combination of multiple ideas. It starts out a voyeuristic film, then moves into a forbidden love story and transforms into a lost love story and shifts again into a trial film. It continues to a story about age and what could have been, goes to a story about learning and hope, and concludes with a story of redemption and loss. Hare all the way.

Who Should Have Been Nominated:
I know some people hate it and a lot of people just plain don’t understand it, but I thought that Revolutionary Road was a fantastic film. Justin Haythe stayed as close as he could to Richard Yates’ book without copying what made the book work. I’ve heard many a blogger shout about the point of the film, well it’s right there in the writing. It’s about desire, shunning normality, wanting to live, all that deeper meaning in life. Michael Shannon should personally thank Haythe for giving him the words to shout and scream his way to an Oscar nomination.

Who Should Not Have Been Nominated:
My own rules are to only pick one, so I can’t throw out three. That being said, Peter Morgan’s script for Frost/Nixon is mediocre at best. Where would this film be without names behind it? Morgan should be thanking Langella, Sheen and God for the fact that a good number of the members of the Academy are senior citizens. I’m still waiting for someone under the age of 30 to really support this film.

Who Should Win:
Hare for The Reader. For reasons mentioned above, but overall because it was the only film out of the five that, while I was watching it, I didn’t give a wanking motion when I heard some piece of dialogue.

Who Will Win:
(Sigh) Beaufoy and his unimaginative script for Slumdog Millionaire. It’s an unfortunate inevitability. If anyone else had a chance it would probably be Shanley, but I’m not holding my breath. If they call anyone else’s name besides Beaufoy, I swear I’ll do a backflip in my living room. But, I can’t do a backflip so I’ll break my lamp and end up throwing my back out. But it will be worth it.

A Best Adapted Screenplay Poem:
Some enjoy the Nixon,
Some enjoy the Frost,
I enjoy a gun,
To blow my head clean off.

In Doubt there were some nuns,
There were some priests as well,
I wish they would stop yelling,
And just go burn in hell.

Benjamin Button was boring,
I’ve heard this all before,
I also saw this movie,
In 1994.

The Reader was the best,
It wasn’t hard to do,
Have your actresses naked,
And you can be loved too.

Slumdog will win everything,
Taxes, death and this,
I wish I would have taken,
A one-and-a-half hour piss.