Oscar nominations were announced this week, with word being that the ceremony will go ahead on February 24, though in what fashion remains to be seen.
My morbid fascination with Hollywood's annual suck-off is well-documented, so lets get right to who's going to win:
Best Picture
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Just to get it out of the way, Juno has no business being on this list. Then again, neither did Forrest Gump, and we all know how that ended up.
Michael Clayton and Atonement are both the kind of movies the Academy loves. One's a legal thriller that aspires to greater meaning, and one's a period wartime romance of the kind immortalized by the excruciating The English Patient. Unfortunately for them, this category is going to come down to No Country vs. There Will Be Blood. The latter may have the edge, thanks to greater exposure (Blood snuck onto a handful of screens the last week of December) and early critical success.
The Winnah: No Country for Old Men by a Prince Valiant hair.
Best Actor
George Clooney, Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp, Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones, In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen, Eastern Promises
It's easy to forget just how good an actor Daniel Day-Lewis is. He makes a big movie only every five years or so, and then he drops out of sight. Watching There Will Be Blood, you once again get to see a truly great artist at work. He might as well be alone on the screen, as easily as he dwarfs just about everyone else in the cast (the snubbed Paul Dano being an exception) No disrespect to the other nominess in this category, but the only way Day-Lewis loses this is if he's competing against himself playing Christy Brown.
The Winnah: Daniel Day-Lewis in the easiest category to call.
Best Actress
Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie, Away From Her
Marion Cotillard, La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney, The Savages
Ellen Page, Juno
The Golden Age was a critical and box office bomb, and Blanchett's performance in I'm Not There is getting all the buzz, so no. Ellen Page is the new indie darling, but indie darlings don't win Best Actress unless they're playing a man, so nuh-uh. And as much as I heart Laura Linney, she isn't going to win. Personally, I think Cotillard did the best job of all the nominees, but outside of her performance, La Vie en Rose was crap. Away From Her was topical and loaded with great acting, so there you go.
The Winnah: Julie Christie.
Best Supporting Actor
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson's War
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton
This and Best Supporting Actress are going to be the hardest categories to call. Three months ago, I'd have said Javier Bardem was a dead lock, but Affleck has been coming up on the outiside, and I honestly thought his Robert Ford was better than Bardem's Anton Chigurh.
But Hal Holbrook throws a major wrench in the works. He's already becoming a sentimental favorite, and this category is a notorious "lifetime achievement/consolation" prize (see also Paul Newman, James Coburn, Alan Arkin). And with recession looming and America entering it's sixth year of war, don't you want to feel good about something, dang it?
The Winnah: Beats the hell out of me. I'm still leaning towards Bardem, but that could easily change.
Best Supporting Actress
Cate Blanchett, I'm Not There
Ruby Dee, American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
Amy Ryan, Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton, Michael Clayton
As with the previous category, this was Amy Ryan's to lose up until I'm Not There hit theaters. Right now you have to call them the favorites, with Swinton a distant third. Ronan's a non-player, and Ruby Dee getting a nod for four minutes of screen time when she has no chance in hell is a bad joke.
The Winnah: Amy Ryan. This is the category for breakthrough performances, and Blanchett has already won, and will likely win again.
Best Director
Julian Schnabel, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jason Reitman, Juno
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood.
Schnabel snaked the Golden Globe from the Coens, who are still the favorites as far as I know. Whether or not this translates to an Oscar win - especially since The Diving Bell and the Butterfly wasn't nominated for Best Picture and wasn't eligible for Best Foreign Film, remains to be seem.
The Winnah: The Coens. And there is a distinct likelihood that No Country will sweep the major awards categories for which it's nominated.
Foreign Film
Beaufort, Israel
The Counterfeiters, Austria
Katyn, Poland
Mongol, Kazakhstan
12, Russia
I haven't seen any of these, and the two that I would've liked to see nominated - Persepolis and 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days - didn't make the cut.
The Winnah: Beats the hell out of me.
Best Adapted Screenplay
Christopher Hampton, Atonement
Sarah Polley, Away from Her
Ronald Harwood, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men
Paul Thomas Anderson, There Will Be Blood
If Atonement has a legitimate shot at any award, it may be this one. No Country is still the favorite, which is a shame, because Polley really deserves more recognition for what she accomplished with Away From Her.
The Winnah: I can see PTA or Hampton coming from behind, but it's hard to vote against the Coens adapting Cormac McCarthy.
Best Original Screenplay
Diablo Cody, Juno
Nancy Oliver, Lars and the Real Girl
Tony Gilroy, Michael Clayton
Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava and Jim Capobianco, Ratatouille
Tamara Jenkins, The Savages
I'd go with just about any of these ahead of Juno (not the overrated Lars, however), which of course means it's going to win.
The Winnah: Cody, now please go away.
Best Animated Feature Film
Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf's Up
I should register some sort of righteous indignation over the lack of a Simpsons nod, but come on. And while Persepolis is a better film, there's no denying that Pixar is doing the best animation out there.
The Winnah: King Rat.
Best Cinematography
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Atonement
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood
Roger Deakins ran the risk of torpedoing his chances by shooting three movies in one year (Jesse James, No Country, and In the Valley of Elah), but it shouldn't matter: like Best Actor, this category is Jesse James and four also-rans.
The Winnah: Don't make me type that title again.
Huh, I guess that wasn't very quick at all.
So who got screwed? Personally, I thought Into the Wild deserved some love...maybe for Sean Penn and Eddie Vedder's score. Speaking of score, the rules need to be tweaked so that something like Jonny Greenwood's There Will Be Blood composition doesn't get overlooked in the future.
Looking at the Juno fallout, I'm mildly surprised Adrienne Shelley's Waitress didn't get a sniff, especially since, let's face it, she died and all.
Sarah Polley should've gotten a nod for Best Director.
And you could've easily bumped Hal Holbrook in favor of Gordon Pinsent in Away From Her. Or the aforementioned Dano.
But the biggest surprise for me by far was no Zodiac. I'm sure it's early release hurt it's chances, but you could easily have ganked Best Picture, Best Director (David Fincher), and Best Supporting Actor (Robert Downey, Jr.) nominations for it. But I'm not an Academy voter.
"So what were your top 10 films of 2007, Pete?" Well, since you asked...
1. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
2. No Country for Old Men
3. There Will Be Blood
4. The King of Kong
5. Zodiac
6. Into the Wild
7. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
8. Eastern Promises
9. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
10. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
I submitted ballots for the Online Film Critics Society and the Houston Film Critics Society, and I wish I'd seen There Will Be Blood beforehand, 'cause uh, it's really good.
She does have the advantage of being the only non-Caucasian nominated for acting this year, but Dench faced a lot less competition in ‘98.
And it’d be a real shame, ‘cause Ryan was fantastic.
Even if there is no worthwhile Oscars presentation this year, we must have the betting pool.
Ruby Dee for BSAct: She’s a twofer for the Academy, minority and Lifetime Achievement. And M got an award for a similar amount of screen time in Shakespeare in Love, as I recall. Giving the Lifetime Achievement here makes it easier to stiff Holbrook in BSAct.