2007 Oscar Watch

I'm not a huge fan of this year.  There Will Be Blood is one of the most overrated movies ever.  No Country For Old Men is a great movie that is so close to perfect except that it lets you down at the ending.  Juno, Michael Clayton and Atonement are decent films that don't quite make it to "Best Picture" territory.  The whole year just feels kinda "meh", a lot of good movies but nothing extraordinary.  I think I feel let down so much because so many people think that There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men are perfect films and I just don't see it.  I'm glad the Coen Brothers got Oscars but other than that this feels like a waste of a year.
 You can see my GABBY winners and nominees HERE

BEST PICTURE

 

5. Juno - Watching this movie 10 years after seeing it in the theaters I have the same reaction, I laughed a lot, the dialogue is very clever, but I don't care about any of these characters.  That's probably because all the characters exist in this clever little world where it doesn't seem like the weight of the world has any effect on them.  Something will happen that could produce consequences but then someone will make a clever little aside and brush it off.  That's not to say the movie isn't funny, it's very funny, but I had no emotional investment in what was going to happen.  She could have the baby, lose the baby, get an abortion or fall into a volcano, I wouldn't really care.  Juno is a pregnant teenager who at first considers an abortion and then decides to give her baby up for adoption.  She finds a couple who seem perfect but the more she gets to know them she starts to find the cracks in their relationship.  It's a very cute movie but not quite something that belongs in the Best Picture race.

4. Michael Clayton - This movie is good but forgettable, which actually works to its advantage, I've seen it 3 times now and each time is like I'm watching it for the first time.  It's a legal thriller starring George Clooney as Michael Clayton.  He's a "fixer" who comes in when they need someone who can solve a problem quickly.  The movie starts at the most exciting part and then flashes back and works its way up to that point so the movie is basically the story about how a bomb got into Clooney's car.  It's a fine movie, very well edited with good performances, but after watching it you're left thinking, that was good but not great.

3. Atonement - This was the biggest surprise out of the nominees this year.  I remember seeing this movie on DVD sometime in 2008 and watching it just because it got nominated for Oscars, not really giving it a chance.  Watching it this time I got sucked into the story.  Keira Knightley comes from a wealthy family and starts a relationship with the gardener.  Her little sister is also in love with him and when she finds out about their relationship gets very jealous.  One day she sees a man molesting her cousin and blames it on the gardener, he's innocent but his life is ruined.  We then follow all the characters as they age and live with this false accusation.  It's a beautiful movie technically, the cinematography is wonderful and the story really sucks you in.  The ending is a bit of a letdown but also very effective.  I really enjoyed this and may consider nominating it myself in a weaker year.

2. There Will Be Blood - The words "classic" and "masterpiece" gets thrown around a lot when people talk about this movie.  I think it's exceptionally well made but the story doesn't grab me at all.  Daniel Day-Lewis plays an oil man who drills for oil in a small town and... 2 1/2 hours later nothing's really happened.  There are a lot of beautiful shots in the film and Day-Lewis chews every piece of scenery there is but I fail to find what everybody sees in this movie.  I remember watching a screener of this film in 2007, it was the first time I got awards screeners and I was really excited to watch this.  When the movie ended I thought that my DVD cut off abruptly, like maybe screeners only give you the first 150 minutes but make you go to the theater for the last 5.  I need more than beautiful imagery and hammy performances to enjoy a film, I need a beginning, middle and end to a story I care about.  This has a beginning and a whole lot of middle.

1. No Country For Old Men - Here's another movie that's anti-climactic, but at least the rest of the movie is exciting.  Josh Brolin finds a suitcase full of money in the desert that is obviously tied to bad people.  He sends his wife to stay with her mother while he figures out a way to keep it.  Meanwhile, a ruthless killer is on his trail as well as the the law.  It's a cat and mouse thriller where the hunter and the prey never meet.  Javier Bardem is terrifying and iconic as Anton Chigurh, a seemingly unstoppable evil force on the hunt for Brolin.  There are many moments of legitimate tension where sometimes Brolin is one step ahead but doesn't realize that Bardem is right around the corner.  It's not a perfect film like some people believe, I was really let down by the ending which leaves you wondering if they just ran out of film, but the movie grabs you and doesn't let you down, until it does.

Surprisingly, the movie I liked best after watching them all in a week was Atonement but that's probably because I had the lowest expectations for that one.  Juno and Michael Clayton are good movies that seem out of place on a list of epics.  I recognize what people love about There Will Be Blood, I just don't see it.  So my vote comes down between Atonement and No Country For Old Men.  Atonement is a movie I was surprised to like and not a movie I would normally vote for so I'm picking No Country For Old Men if only because the Coen Brothers were overlooked in 1996 for Fargo so this is half a vote for a good movie and half a vote for making up for a true Oscar travesty.  Fargo is a perfect movie, No Country is damn near close and seeing as how the Coens have never been honored with the Best Picture prize this is as good a time as any to award them.

Oscar Winner: No Country For Old Men
My Vote: No Country For Old Men
GABBY Winner: Hot Fuzz

BEST ACTOR

 

5. Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street - This is a fine movie, by no means a great one and it really had no chance of being one.  Tim Burton takes what may be the greatest musical of all time and makes it all dark and Burton-y.  It has some good things going for it, the music is terrific and I really enjoyed Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett.  It also has some bad things, the lack of a chorus really leaves something missing and there's also Johnny Depp's almost lifeless performance in the lead.  He doesn't have the singing chops of Len Cariou or George Hearn but Carter is no Angela Lansbury but she makes up for it with a good performance that has some heart.  Depp plays Benjamin Barker like an emo kid who instead of being imprisoned for years plotting his revenge has been in his room listening to his My Chemical Romance albums.

4. George Clooney - Michael Clayton - It really stinks that Clooney won an acting Oscar for Syriana.  There wasn't anything incredibly special about that performance, he won mostly because he was also nominated for Best Director that year and they didn't want him to leave empty handed.  It really stinks because he keeps turning in fantastic performances that are deserving of Oscar attention but there's no urgency to give him a win since he already has one.  Michael Clayton isn't exactly an Oscar worthy movie but Up In The Air and The Descendants are and I'm sure he'll have more.  Here he plays a legal fixer who gets too entangled in a conspiracy and ends up getting people after him for it.  It's a perfectly fine Clooney performance, not so much an acting triumph but Clooney is able to make this movie work with pure star power.

3. Tommy Lee Jones - In The Valley Of Elah - Tommy Lee Jones should have been nominated for his performance in No Country For Old Men but the supporting category was too crowded and he would have had to compete with his co-star Javier Bardem.  Luckily they were able to make room for him here for his performance as a dad whose son has gone AWOL from the army and turns up murdered.  He suspects more than what the police are telling him so he takes the law into his own hands and starts his own investigation.  Jones is no nonsense with a quiet intensity and has some truly heartbreaking moments when he realizes that his love for the army inadvertently sent his son to die.  It's like if The Great Santini had a big heart, Jones is able to, without saying much of anything sometimes, show you everything in this character's soul.

2. Viggo Mortensen - Eastern Promises - This is one of those movies I always think I should like more that I do.  Mortensen is an actor I tend to enjoy very much and David Cronenberg is a director whose style I greatly appreciate.  Every time I watch this movie I'm just left with a sense of meh.  Mortensen is good in it though, he plays a Russian mobster and to talk about his character you kind of need to spoil the film's plot twist so I'll just say that he starts off as one thing and turns out to be something else and when you watch the movie multiple times you can see that Viggo has these little nuances that show you who he really is.  There's also a big crazy naked fight scene in a Turkish bath that I think got him the nomination.

1. Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood - Daniel Day-Lewis plays Daniel Plainview an oil man who screams a lot.  I don't love this movie by a long shot but you can't argue that Day-Lewis gives an incredible performance.  He's hammy as all hell but it works and it's captivating.  Had he not been in the film this would be one of the worst movies ever made.  Day-Lewis single-handedly makes it good.

I realize after doing my 2012 and 1989 Oscar Watch blogs I have voted for Day-Lewis all 3 times he has won.  Usually when someone wins once I like to wait a while before giving them a second.  This is almost 20 years after his first win so it's been long enough to give him a second and unfortunately he gave a fantastic performance 5 years later and had no competition.  So, knowing that he's gonna win again soon I'm tempted with voting for Viggo but I like to pretend I am voting how I would vote at the time so I have no choice but to give this to Daniel Day-Lewis.

Oscar Winner: Daniel Day-Lewis

My Vote: Daniel Day-Lewis
GABBY Winner: Phillip Seymour Hoffman for Before The Devil Knows You're Dead

BEST ACTRESS

5. Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth: The Golden Age - In 1998 they made the movie Elizabeth and it was so boring that they decided to get the whole gang back together 9 years later and make a sequel that nobody wanted.  I'm not going to say this is a terrible movie, I just don't care for historical costume dramas.  This is actually a little more exciting than the first one, but not by much.  Blanchett is fine in the title role but there is absolutely no way I can care about this nomination.

4. Marion Cotillard - La Vie En Rose - Foreign performances never rank that highly with me.  I find that when I'm watching a movie with subtitles, performances seem better because I'm reading the script as they are saying the lines so it's almost like I'm putting my own passion into the words.  I can't really tell if they have passion because I don't understand their language.  Cotillard plays Edith Piaf, she's good in the role, I think, I don't speak French.  I found the Oscar winning old age makeup a little over the top and that distracted me during half of her scenes.

3. Laura Linney - The Savages - The Savages is a very interesting movie.  It takes a subject that is usually played for pathos, like in Away From Her, and plays it for more realistic comedy.  The movie is about a man going through dementia and how it affects his two children.  Laura Linney and Phillip Seymour Hoffman don't have the greatest relationship but need to come together to take care of a father that they didn't really much care for anyway.  Linney is very good in the film she plays her character with both an optimism and a pessimism that is completely real and completely likable.  I'm sure one day I will be voting for Linney when the right role comes along but this just isn't her year.

2. Ellen Page - Juno - If you're gonna make your main character the hippest thing in the room you better cast an actress who can pull off being the hippest thing in the room.  Page plays Juno, a pregnant teenager who pretends to smoke a pipe, has a hamburger phone and steals lawn furniture.  She has a quip for every situation which could make the character irritating if not for an insanely likable performance.  The character as written almost seems above everyone but Page humanizes her and never makes her too hip, just hip enough that you can still like her.

1. Julie Christie - Away From Her - This is such a beautiful film, it's depressing and hopeful at the same time.  Christie plays a woman who begins to show signs of Alzheimer's, she accepts this and willingly goes to a nursing home, she isn't allowed to see her husband for 30 days as to not confuse her as she adjusts.  After that time her husband comes to see her and she has not only forgotten him but has formed a relationship with another man.  It asks the question what's harder, staying or leaving?  The truly heartbreaking performance comes from Gordon Pinsent as the husband because he's able to feel pain because of his memories while Christie isn't able to hold on to being upset.  Christie is incredible, she never overplays the symptoms of the disease, it's a very honest portrayal.

This was a major surprise, at least at my Oscar party.  The race seemed to be between Christie and Page and then Marion Cotillard slipped in at the last minute.  It really seemed like Julie Christie's to lose, she won almost every other critics award.  I'm not sure if it was a vote split or if people really liked La Vie En Rose.  Christie already won an Oscar so it's not terrible that she lost, she's not quite an actress who needs 2 Oscars, Page is still young and may get other chances or may flame out but the same is true for Cotillard.  I would much rather have had Laura Linney win just in case she doesn't ever get that great role we can honor her for.  I gotta vote for Christie even though she's already won.  Her performance just moved me to tears. 

Oscar Winner: Marion Cotillard

My Vote: Julie Christie
GABBY Winner: Julie Christie 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

5. Phillip Seymour Hoffman - Charlie Wilson's War - It's awesome that Hoffman got a nomination this year because it would be hard to fit him in the best actor category for either The Savages of Before The Devil Knows You're Dead so instead they gave him the 5th slot for being a scene stealer in a not so great film.  This a political dramedy directed by Mike Nichols and written by Aaron Sorkin.  Some of the dialogue is clever but Tom Hanks's accent is inconsistent and Julia Roberts in completely miscast.  Hoffman seems to be the only person who knows he's in an Aaron Sorking movie and keeps his character both grounded in reality while also making him a quip machine.

4. Hal Holbrook - Into The Wild - This is about a kid who decides to live off the land with no survival skills to speak of and he ends up dying because he ate the wrong type of plant.  It's a well made movie but it's hard for me to feel sympathy for a guy who died doing something he probably shouldn't have been doing.  I was watching this movie for an hour and a half and forgot that I was watching it because of Hal Holbrook then I realized that I hadn't seen him yet.  The movie is told non-linear and we see Emile Hirsch wandering around Alaska at the same time we see him preparing for his journey and meeting different people along the way.  In the last 30 minutes or so of the movie he meets Hal Holbrook who is an old lonely man that teaches him how to make leather belts.  Holbrook is very sweet playing a sweet character but you could probably cut his character completely out of the movie and not lose the narrative.  He barely factors into the plot except to show you what the main character could have had.  This isn't exactly Oscar level type work this is a nomination for a guy who might be dead next year.

3. Casey Affleck - The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford - You wouldn't think that you could care about a movie where the title is a spoiler but this movie works because it follows Casey Affleck as Robert Ford at first idolizing Jesse James and then slowly realizing that his hero isn't who he thought he was.  Affleck makes Ford so meek and pathetic that you understand his journey.  He first looks at Jesse James as a kid looks at Superman and then starts to look at him like Luke Skywalker looking at Darth Vader.  It's a really great performance but it's in the wrong category.  He's a co-lead in the film, he does disappear from time to time but the movie is more about him than Brad Pitt who plays James.  The rest of this category is filled with true supporting parts and he is a big fish in a small pond.  I'm glad he got the nomination though because he was also really good in Gone Baby Gone this year.

2. Tom Wilkinson - Michael Clayton - Michael Clayton is a legal thriller about George Clooney trying to solve an issue involving Tom Wilkinson having a nervous breakdown.  Wilkinson gets to play full on wacko cuckoo nutso in the film.  When we first see him it's on camera footage of him tearing off his clothes during a meeting.  Then Clooney meets with him and he just starts spouting gibberish because he's gone off his medication.  Wilkinson is great in the film and a character that you keep wanting to see more of.  Unfortunately he's not in the movie enough to warrant a win but this is a great nomination for a great actor.  He could have easily overplayed the role and been too hammy but he keeps a nice balance between grounded and cuckoo banana pants.

1. Javier Bardem - No Country For Old Men - Josh Brolin finds a suitcase full of money and suspects that some bad people might be chasing him.  He has no idea that the person chasing him is one of the most iconic and terrifying villains ever on film.  Bardem plays Anton Chigurh who speaks very matter of fact and has no problems murdering anyone who gets in his way.  Sometimes he murders people at random and sometimes he flips a coin to let chance decide their fate.  Bardem is insanely magnetic in the role and it is one of those films where as soon as he enters you know you are watching an Oscar winning performance.

I want Tom Wilkinson to have an Oscar but nobody is beating Javier Bardem this year.  Much like Daniel Day-Lewis in the lead actor category, you just feel an Oscar as soon as the character is introduced.  This is one of the best wins in this category ever.

Oscar Winner: Javier Bardem
My Vote: Javier Bardem
GABBY Winner: Javier Bardem

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

5. Ruby Dee - American Gangster - Here's how you can tell if a nomination has merit or is just a nomination for an old lady.  If she only in 2 scenes of the film?  Can you cut her character completely out of the film and little would change?  Is the actress 85 years old? If the answers are all yes then you don't have to vote for this.

4. Saoirse Ronan - Atonement - Ronan's character is the main character of the film but she only plays her for the first half of the movie so it's acceptable that she's nominated here.  She's a little girl who is the center of her world and when she sees adult things she doesn't quite understand she reacts the way a little girl would.  She only comes to realize the weight of her actions much later in life.  She's in love with James McAvoy and when she sees her cousin getting molested she believes she saw McAvoy as the perpetrator but actually didn't see who it was at all.  She's good but I really don't like giving Oscars to children or actors in their first film.  They are untested and sometimes you get someone like Edward Norton in Primal Fear who goes on to do great things and sometimes you get someone like Jennifer Hudson who never does anything again.  Ronan has grown into a very good actress and should have other chances.

3. Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton - I was really surprised that Swinton won the Oscar this year because she doesn't really do all that much in Michael Clayton.  It's not that she gives a bad performance, she's quite good in the film but there's just not all that much to it.  She works for a company that is in legal trouble because they knowingly manufactured a product they knew to be dangerous.  She is constantly sweating and preparing her carefully worded speeches and the editing does most of the work because we see her giving the speeches intercut with her practicing and sweating in the bathroom.  She's good in the film but there's not much of her and for a movie starring George Clooney and featuring a go for broke performance by Tom Wilkinson she is not the person I would immediately think to honor.

2. Cate Blanchett - I'm Not There - This is a weird movie.  A bunch of different actors play different facets of Bob Dylan.  Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, a young black child and Cate Blanchett all play characters inspired by Bob Dylan but named differently.  I didn't care for it that much but the best part about it was Blanchett's performance.  Even though she is the wrong gender to play the part she somehow manages to be the most realistic Dylan surrogate.  She plays the part as a man and is completely believable.  It's hard to tell if she's captivating because of stunt casting or if she's just a great actress, it's probably a little bit of both.  On the plus side, she's a double nominee this year and this is the better performance.  On the negative side, she just won 3 years ago and it's too early to give her a 2nd win.

1. Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone - First off Amy Ryan was also in Before The Devil Knows You're Dead this year which is a movie that was unfairly overlooked so I would vote for her just based on that.  Her performance here though is incredible.  Gone Baby Gone is about a kidnapping in Boston and you meet a whole bunch of shady Boston types, Boston is a real hell hole in movies.  Ryan is the woman whose daughter is kidnapped so right away you assume that she is a victim and you should feel sympathy for her.  Problem is, she is really a despicable person.  She's white trash, a drug runner, an alcoholic, a drug addict, she throws around racial slurs loosely and she tells cops to go fuck themselves as they are trying to find her daughter.  It's a really interesting character because you're questioning whether she should have a child in the first place but also feeling for her because she's going thorough this traumatic event.  You hate her so much and Ryan just perfectly nails the part.

I remember a lot of people were predicting Ruby Dee to win here.  She won the SAG award which indicated support within the acting branch but sometimes they will give the SAG to someone who has never won before and vote differently when it comes to the Oscars.  I'm still a little surprised that Tilda Swinton ended up being the choice.  Luckily it turned out to be a win for a good actress so it's not like there was a vote split and Megan Fox ended up winning.  I still think Amy Ryan was robbed. She was absolutely fantastic in Gone Baby Gone and even though her career never took off after this would have held up as a worthy winner.

Oscar Winner: Tilda Swinton
My Vote: Amy Ryan
GABBY Winner: Amy Ryan

Best Director

The Coen Brothers win for No Country For Old Men which is a fantastic decision because they have consistently made good to great films with only a few missteps here and there.  I'm really glad they didn't go with Paul Thomas Anderson as he keeps thinking his movies are more important than they really are.  I know a lot of people love Anderson's work but I continue to find him a visually interesting director who tends to like mood and atmosphere over story.

Best Original Screenplay/Adapted Screenplay
Former stripper and blogger Diablo Cody wins Original Screenplay for Juno which is fine because the competition included Lars And The Real Girl, Michael Clayton, Ratatouille and The Savages, nothing really screams "Winner", plus Cody had the story to go along with her Oscar.  Just like Ben and Matt in 1997 the Oscars love a good underdog story and making a dream come true.  The Coens win again in the Adapted Screenplay category for No Country For Old Men.  They could have spread the love here and awarded Sarah Polley for her honest and heartbreaking work on Away From Her but the Coens deserved it as well.

Best Animated Feature
Ratatouille wins, which is deserving, Pixar was hitting it out of the park every year for a while and getting the Oscars to prove it.  My big complaint with this category is the absence of The Simpsons Movie.  They nominated Persepolis, which is a great movie and then for the 3rd slot went with Surf's Up a very forgettable mockumentary about surfing penguins.

Best Documentary Feature
Alex Gibney wins for Taxi To The Dark Side against a few other films focused on the current climate of war in the middle east.  No End In Sight about the American occupation of Iraq, Operation Homecoming: Writing In Wartime about soldiers in the war, Sicko about our health care crisis under the current administration and War/Dance about children in a Uganda refugee camp.

Best Original Score/Song
Atonement wins score which is a decision I didn't like at first, I listened to the score before I watched the movie and found it annoying, they do this thing where the score emulates the typing of a typewriter, but when you watch the movie the music sweeps over you and is very effective.  The song Falling Slowly from Once wins Best Song which considering it was up against a song from August Rush and 3 songs from Enchanted, which I'm sure split their own votes, was a great choice.  I don't know why they didn't include any of the songs from Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story or Music And Lyrics though.  The Oscars just hate comedy I guess.

Best Sound Editing/Sound Mixing
The Bourne Ultimatum wins both sound awards which makes sense since it was a well made and respected action film but No Country For Old Men should have won one of these.

Best Art Direction
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street wins fairly.  I didn't care for the movie but it did have a distinct look that was fun.

Best Cinematography
They had not one but two chances to finally give Roger Deakins an Oscar.  He shot No Country For Old Men and the beautiful The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford but they went with There Will Be Blood instead.

Best Makeup
So there is no way in hell that Norbit should have ever been nominated for an Oscar much less win, despite having good makeup and if the choice is between the 3rd Pirates Of The Caribbean movie and La Vie En Rose you really have to pick the classier of the two choices.  I thought the old age makeup in La Vie En Rose was distractingly awful though.

Best Costume Design
Sure, give an Oscar to Elizabeth: The Golden Age.  Nobody will ever care.

Best Film Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum surprisingly wins here.  Paul Greengrass movies are usually really well put together so I'm not complaining but it's a bit weird that the choices were The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, Into The Wild, No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood and they picked the 3rd Jason Bourne adventure.

Best Visual Effects
The Golden Compass wins, which is a movie that didn't do that well and nobody remembers today.  It was up against the 3rd Pirates Of The Caribbean movie and the noise that was the first Transformers movie so it makes a little sense, but not much.

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