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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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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:
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.
All in all, a good selection for this year. And I'm quite happy that they chose Sex, Lies and Videotape, as the NFR sometimes has trouble remembering to put independent films on their list. What should be next? Well, it's high time they put A Christmas Story (1983) on there, and more Cassavetes stuff would be nice, especially
Faces (1968), along with A Clockwork Orange (1971), 12 Angry Men (1957) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975). Lots of great films that still need to be preserved.
The list of films on the National Film Registry (sans this year's additions)
| "Most of the humor comes from the fact that Sacha Baron Cohen is using his character to show other people's faults. To be honest, while it is funny, most of the time it's simply a real eye-opener to how stupid and bigoted people in America can be." | |
He continued looking out his window, down on the dark street below and the rows of brownstones that littered the block. The early-morning dog walkers started to emerge from their houses and sleepily made their way down the long flights of stairs leading to their doors. The street consisted of many of these old brownstone buildings – many of them hundreds of years old – and a single large apartment complex on the end. Each side of the street was lit with gaslights – a dozen on each side, leading all the way up to the other side of the street, to the chestnut tree on the other end. The street sat on a hill, enabling anyone at a high enough altitude and facing the west to look down upon the entire Gaslight District, and, further on in the distance, the rest of Boston.
As the old man stood staring out his window, he heard a sound from the kitchen. It seemed to be a slight rattling noise, although he could not pinpoint the source of it. At first he thought it might be an intruder, but he soon realized that was not the case, as his front door opened into his living room, and he would’ve heard someone enter the front door long before this. As he stepped into his kitchen, he spotted a mouse scurrying across the floor. Then, all of a sudden, it stopped in its tracks, and looked up at the old man, who continued walking into the kitchen. The mouse stood, frozen. Not one step. Not one hesitation. It was not out of fear – in fact, it stood there casually, making a chirping noise with its mouth. Even the mouse knew this man meant no harm.
Then, abruptly, the room went dark. He looked out his window, and noticed that one of the gaslights had gone out. Now all that remained was the moonlight. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the faint lighting in the room, he squinted behind his thick glasses and staggered over to the kitchen table, where he sat down at the rickety old chair near the window. He looked through the aged, scratched window glass and observed the stars fading one by one, and then the first rays of sunshine struggling to penetrate the thick morning fog. As he watched a young city worker trying to fix the broken gaslight outside, he turned his attention back inside, where he noticed his little rodent friend was how sitting on the table next to him. Years ago, he would have chased the little animal away, broom in hand, all around the apartment – as if he was reenacting some lost comic image from an old Charlie Chaplin film. But age had gotten to him – in more ways than one – and now he slowly raised himself from his chair and made his way to the cupboard. He rummaged through the boxes and cans, and victoriously arrived at a box of crackers, which he opened up and brought back to the table. He took one out of the box, breaking a piece of it off and carefully placing it down on the table. The mouse’s first instinct was to snatch it up as quickly as possible with its little paws and run back to its hiding place, but this was a different situation, and it knew this fact very well. It confidently strolled over to the cracker and ate it in that very spot, mere inches from the man’s hand. After it was done, the man broke off another small piece and placed it in the palm of his hand, laying the back side of his hand flat against the table. The mouse hesitated this time, but its little feet began to creep forward, until he was next to – and then in – the palm of his hand. Just then, a loud sound outside made the man jump, and the mouse went scurrying off into a corner. Looking outside the window, he noticed the worker who was fixing the gaslight had dropped his toolbox, which had sent dozens of wrenches and hammers onto the street and scattered across the sidewalk. The old man turned his attention back inside and began to look for the mouse.
The Gaslight District, Part 1
The Gaslight District, Part 2
The Gaslight District, Part 3
As the day continued on, he retired to his bedroom, watching the sun’s descent on his ceiling. The bright white light of afternoon quickly turned orange, and then the dark amber hue of evening filled his window. He walked across the room and looked down on the street below. The last lingering signs of life remained: Several kids – remnants of the evening’s hide-and-seek game – hid behind cars and underneath bushes, desperate to escape the clutch of that night’s seeker; the old women – seated outside on their front stoops in lawn chairs – had given up on their afternoon sunshine, and instead headed inside to actually face their husbands for the night.
He lived across the street from a bar, and as the many groups of people entered on this Friday night, he made – as he often did – a little bet with himself as to which one of them would be the last to stumble out onto the sidewalk in a drunken stupor, waking him up from his deep sleep and signaling the arrival of the misty morning fog. As he drifted off to sleep, his thoughts quickly veered from the exploits across the street back to matters of more importance. The beach. The sand. The night. That long-lost memory, all those years ago. It was so clear and vivid in his mind, it could have happened yesterday: The crashing of waves against the shore; the distant sound of a cargo ship in the darkness; the faint scent of saltwater on his clothes the next morning. Fuck this. He hurriedly summoned up all of his energy and attempted to focus on something else. Something much less emotionally...brutal.
As he frantically searched his mind for a comforting image with which to numb his brain into submission, his thoughts wandered back to the little girl and the chestnut tree, and he quickly fell asleep. He was awoken by a loud crash, and he sleepily shuffled over to the window to locate the cause of the disturbance. He spotted Seymour, the 60-year-old town drunk, stumbling around outside. He had wandered outside – or, more likely, was kicked out – and tripped over a large metal trashcan, sending it tumbling into he street, and he along with it. As the owner of the bar retrieved him from the pavement and tried to silence the babbling, intoxicated old man, Seymour picked himself up, brushed himself off, and strolled into the early morning light. He stopped in front of the corner chestnut tree, picked a few of them up off the ground, and put them in his pocket. As several kids groggily walked to the bus stop, he handed a chestnut to a little girl, and kept on walking.
He struggled to open the heavy oak door, and once inside, he began his trek up the dimly-lit hallway. The old stairs creaked and groaned under his weight as he made his daily trek up to his fourth floor apartment. He had promised himself for years that he’d move into another building on the other side of town, where the then-new building codes required that there be an elevator, but years later, he remained in the same place. He walked through the quiet hallway, down to the end of the hall, and stopped in front of apartment 8A. He turned the key in the doorknob, and forced open his frequently-stuck door. I need to fix that. He knew he never would, of course, but it made him feel like he was accomplishing something by noticing that it needed to be done.
He walked over to his television, and retrieved the picture of his wife that was sitting on top of it. As part of his ritual, he kissed the picture, set it back down, and walked to his kitchen table. He looked out his window, over all of Beacon Hill, and watched the gaslights slowly being exterminated. Even the city had not yet adjusted to the autumn season. He turned his attention back inside his apartment. His hands searched the cluttered kitchen table for his journal. He found it and opened it, its old leather cover stretching and straining upon opening. He started writing, his rambling prose detailing all of the sights and scenes of the day. He wrote of how the young family had reminded him of himself when he was younger – minus the child, of course – for that little detail was never to occur. He wrote of the fluttering leaves and the busy waitress and the half-asleep assembly line of customers, and anything else that happened to enter his brain at that particular moment.
A cloud formed overhead, and the light inside his small apartment slowly began to dim. He walked across the room and switched on the light, and the overhead fluorescent bulbs flickered and buzzed as the room quickly brightened. Hours had passed, and he returned to the window, now watching the children returning home after their day at school. He watched as the fleet of yellow schoolbuses rolled over the hills, winding in and out of the streets, and marvelled at the ballet of little feet splashing in puddles and picking up fallen leaves in the street. A little girl paused and examined a chestnut tree, and upon obtaining some of its riches that were deposited on the ground, promptly skipped on down the street, making sure to jump in each and every puddle along the way. The cloud became thicker and more pronounced in the sky, and he was sure a storm was coming. Whether it would be rain or snow, he could not be sure. It was that time of year.
