Wow, I guess I haven't really updated that much lately. Well, I've been watching a lot of movies recently, so that I can write my "Best Of" list for 2006... I have about 20 more movies to go, and then I will have seen every major release (and some minor releases, too) of 2006.

2007 Academy Award nominations

Well, the nominations were announced this morning... no big fuck-ups or surprises here, it's all very much as expected. To summarize:

Best Picture - nominees:

• Babel
• The Departed
• Letters from Iwo Jima
• Little Miss Sunshine
• The Queen

Basically the same line-up that we've seen at all the other awards shows this year... the one interesting change here is the addition of Iwo Jima in the Best Picture category instead of the Foreign Film category, which is where most other awards have been placing it. I personally like this choice (I'd rather have it omitted entirely, but oh well), as it seems to me pretty stupid to have a Best Foreign Film nominee from the USA (which I believe would've been a first). As I've stated before, put United 93 in Iwo Jima's place and you have a real list. But I must say: REALLY happy that Dreamgirls didn't get in there. In terms of the winner, well, Sunshine won the Producer's Guild and Babel won the Golden Globe...so it's really between those two.

Best Actor - nominees:

• Leonardo DiCaprio for Blood Diamond
• Ryan Gosling for Half Nelson
• Peter O'Toole for Venus
• Will Smith for The Pursuit of Happyness
• Forest Whitaker for The Last King of Scotland

Once again, the same as every other list out there. Whitaker has won basically every single award out there, so he's pretty much a lock. And hey, it'll be fun to see the big guy in Fast Times that warned "Don't fuck with it!" win an Oscar. If you ask me, DiCaprio should have been nominated for The Departed instead. And lastly, my personal favorite performance of the bunch is Gosling in Half Nelson.

Best Actress - nominees:

• Penélope Cruz for Volver
• Judi Dench for Notes on a Scandal
• Helen Mirren for The Queen
• Meryl Streep for The Devil Wears Prada
• Kate Winslet for Little Children

Once again, no real surprises. Mirren has won, like Whitaker, basically every award under the sun this year, so she's virtually a lock. Dench (the most overrated actress of her generation working today) continues to get nominated for almost every little performance that comes vomiting out of her, and Streep has somehow gotten recognized for a quirky little performance in one of the worst movies of the year. On the other hand, both Cruz and Winslet were very good. Mirren has it in the bag, though.

Best Supporting Actor - nominees:

• Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine
• Jackie Earle Haley for Little Children
• Djimon Hounsou for Blood Diamond
• Eddie Murphy for Dreamgirls
• Mark Wahlberg for The Departed

While I like seeing Wahlberg's name on there, his role was admittedly too underdeveloped to accurately guage the quality of his performance. Hounsou is really a filler nominee in a year of mostly weak films. My personal favorite is Haley (remember him from The Bad News Bears?) who really is brilliant in Little Children. But it's really between the last two: Arkin turned in a solid, if unremarkable performance...the aging actor, however, just might pull a victory. The frontrunner right now, however - strange as it may seem - is actually Eddie Murphy, who's won this damn Supporting Actor award all over the place. It truly is a performance not even worthy of the nomination. Believe me, I love the guy, but he just didn't bring what it took to his performance in that movie.

Best Supporting Actress - nominees:

• Adriana Barraza for Babel
• Cate Blanchett for Notes on a Scandal
• Abigail Breslin for Little Miss Sunshine
• Jennifer Hudson for Dreamgirls
• Rinko Kikuchi for Babel

Well, this is the category I get angry at this year. Usually there's several - this year it's only this one. But it's a big one. Jennifer Hudson is the frontrunner this year, but I really can't imagine why. It's the kind of awards-season choice, the kind that seems to be unanimous among everybody, that makes you wonder if everybody has truly become retarded. Her performance is as bland as a TV dinner. With no dimension, and no sense of middle ground, her performance is either too low, or way over the top. Granted, she has a fiery presence, and the anger comes through in her singing, but whenever she opens her mouth to talk (which rarely happens in the movie) it comes out flat. I honestly don't see how she can, or will, make it as an actress, unless every single movie she does in the future is a musical. A sad and blasphemous misstep this year. As for the rest, Blanchett is solid as always, and it's nice to see the two Babel women - who stole the show away from everyone else - actually nominated. The young Breslin was very good, and it wouldn't be bad to see her win, but it's a long-shot.

Best Director - nominees:

• Clint Eastwood for Letters from Iwo Jima
• Stephen Frears for The Queen
• Paul Greengrass for United 93
• Alejandro González Iñárritu for Babel
• Martin Scorsese for The Departed

Finally, some goddamn recognition for Greengrass (after getting shut out of the Directors Guild nominees). Although technically, his was my favorite direction of the year, you really have to give it to Scorsese. I mean, come on, it's like a running joke now, he's been nominated so many times. He's the favorite right now, and I truly hope he finally gets the damn thing. I might even turn on the telecast (which I promised myself I wouldn't watch this year) near the end just to see his acceptance speech. Hopefully. You all know my hatred for Eastwood (besides Mystic River) so you don't have to guess what I thought of his nomination, and although Frears and Iñárritu were both exceptional this year, you have to give it to Scorsese. Finally. Please? Pretty please, with a cherry on top?

Best Original Screenplay - nominees:

• Guillermo Arriaga for Babel
• Iris Yamashita and Paul Haggis for Letters from Iwo Jima
• Michael Arndt for Little Miss Sunshine
• Guillermo del Toro for Laberinto del Fauno, El
• Peter Morgan for The Queen

Basically, what you have here is this: It comes down to Sunshine and Babel - whoever wins Best Picture, the screenplay award will go to the other one (the Academy likes to award a little bit to everybody). If they especially fall in love with the movie, they might give it both. The only other movie capable of creeping up on the two is The Queen. Pan's Labyrinth's single award will probably be for Foreign Film. And let's just say this about the remaining film: if that hack Paul Haggis wins anything else, I will be very pissed.

Best Adapted Screenplay - nominees:

• Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer and Todd Phillips for Borat
• Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby for Children of Men
• William Monahan for The Departed
• Todd Field and Tom Perrotta for Little Children
• Patrick Marber for Notes on a Scandal

This might actually be the closest race of the night...a pretty sad year for movies when the closest race is in the Adapted Screenplay category. The Borat nomination is great, but it's a sympathy nomination, because it's a great movie, but not the sort of movie that the Academy recognizes. The Notes on a Scandal nomination makes sense, but probably won't see a win. The Departed was a great film, but the nomination is a hard call, since it's actually a remake of a (apparently superior) series of three Hong Kong films, combined into one for this American version. Children of Men was critically acclaimed this year, so the Academy may want to give it something....but it really isn't actually deserving of the nomination...the script is murky and vague and probably the weakest of the nominees (ironically, it's one of the top contenders to win it). I'd personally like to see Todd Field (who deserved something for In The Bedroom) win it this year. But this is basically wide open.

And that's about it. All the technical awards (cinematography, editing, music) are actually quite close this year, so we'll see.

Directors Guild of America nominees

Martin Scorsese for The Departed
Bill Condon for Dreamgirls
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu for Babel
Stephen Frears for The Queen
Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris for Little Miss Sunshine

Decent list, except... where is Paul Greengrass? Everyone on there is deserving, but Greengrass's direction on United 93 hovers way above the direction in Sunshine, and Condon did a servicable job on his picture, but it was mostly by-the-numbers. Replace either one of those with Greengrass, and you have a real list. The thing about the Directors Guild is this: the nominees here usually go on to be the Best Picture nominees... yet another reason why I'm not watching the Oscars this year.

Clip from Children of Men
(Warning: HUGE spoilers in this clip - although it occurs early in the film, it gives away an important plot point. Only view it if you've seen the movie or don't care about seeing the spoiler.)

So, is Children of Men as good as everyone's saying? Short answer: no. The film had five screenwriters, and this point is painfully obvious while watching the movie. I gotta say though, there are some great shots in this movie. Most of the movie is obviously inspired by I Am Cuba, as there's lots of one-shot, long, choreographed shots with a handheld camera. The shot from the clip above is awesome; it appears as if it was shot with a remote camera on a small motorized dolly track on the roof of the car... that's the only way I think it could've been done.

Clip from Idiocracy

Idiocracy

Wow, why was this movie buried? It's great. Sure, it's not perfect, and it gets a little hackneyed at the end, but it's better than most of what gets into the theaters these days. I feel really sorry for Mike Judge. Here he's created a daring, original film that really deserved an audience. Instead, it was buried by 20th Century Fox. Granted, Judge shouldn't have tried to work with Fox again (after the problems he had with the release of Office Space). He really should have seen it coming, but you can't blame the guy for trying. The movie, at least, hopefully will get an audience. He's so vicious with his satire here, that you really can't blame Fox for being scared of it: The movie takes place in a future world where Starbucks no longer sells coffee, but instead sex; one of the only phrases people know is "I like money"; and people can buy law degrees at Costco. True to Judge's other work, the satire is mixed with broad humor: The #1 television show in the country is called "Ow, my balls!" and features a guy getting kicked in the nuts for 30 minutes; the #1 movie in the country is a film entitled "Ass" and features a naked butt onscreen for 2 hours; pornography and newspapers have been blended into one simplified magazine; and the anchors on Fox News are portrayed as shirtless muscled men. Definitely not the kind of thing you can market to midwestern America. But for everyone else, my advice is to go see it. It's released on DVD January 9th.
Idiocracy

Random thought: What the hell happened to Little Children? This was one of my most-anticipated films in a while, ever since I heard about it back in 2004. It's director Todd Field's 2nd film after 2001's brilliant In The Bedroom (which was always, in my opinion, the best film of that year), but after a little buzz early on, it has gone virtually ignored. It never even opened in Maine (which is a little ironic, considering Field grew up there and Bedroom was filmed there). In fact, it never opened in more than 30 theaters. The only disappearing act this year that could be considered more bizarre was Mike Judge's Idiocracy...and that was because it was "controversial". New Line used to be one of the best in the 'biz, but judging by the blunder of Little Children, they can't market a movie for shit anymore (case in point: The New World).