Actress Psychic Contest

Holla'.

Just a quick note before I run back to hit the books (with a stick, naturally). Nathaniel Rogers of The Film Experience has opened the floodgates for his annual Actress Psychic Contest.
If you're at all interested in the Best Actress contest, have a masochistic streak or are a compulsive gambler, head on over and make your predictions. The entering criteria are simple; pick 5 women who have films opening in 2008 and throughout the year there'll be a running tally, with points being allocated for awards, publicity, critical buzz and a whole host of other bits 'n bobs. It's all very mathematical and complex, but all we have to do is send off an email with 5 names and then start praying that our picks will amount to something. For those of us who need a little reminder of what's to come in the cinematic year ahead, Nathaniel has helpfully provided a comprehensive list of 50 or so women who could be making waves with their coming films. My 5 names are listed below:

Anne Hathaway - Dancing with Shiva
Rachel McAdams - The Time Traveller's Wife
Julianne Moore - Blindness
Naomi Watts - Funny Games
Kate Winslet - Revolutionary Road

I submitted this line-up mere minutes ago and I'm already filled with doubts. The list is skewed towards the young end of the actressing scale and leaving Meryl Streep out of any line-up seems foolhardy, but I'm sticking with these five. I strongly doubt this will reflect the 2009 Oscar nominations (except maybe Winslet and Moore), but my five could possibly whip up some excitement between them on the publicity circuit. I have Hathaway and McAdams for the publicity trail, Winslet and Moore for the prestige spot and Watts for the critical approval/leftfield spot. I think my picks are a little too scattered and perhaps too beholden to my own personal biases, but we'll see how this goes. Expect many updates, upsets, curses and perhaps some minor miracles (i.e. Funny Games not being branded "too dark" for major buzz) as the year progresses.

Oscar Nominations

Here we go. Everyone reading this has probably heard these a thousand times before, but I want to repeat them here. I was on tenderhooks all day yesterday during school, waiting to find out who has made it in.

Best motion picture of the year
“Atonement”
“Juno”
“Michael Clayton”
“No Country for Old Men”
“There Will Be Blood”

Achievement in directing
“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” Julian Schnabel
“Juno” Jason Reitman
“Michael Clayton” Tony Gilroy
“No Country for Old Men” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen
“There Will Be Blood” Paul Thomas Anderson

Performance by an actor in a leading role
George Clooney in “Michael Clayton”
Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood”
Johnny Depp in “Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”
Tommy Lee Jones in “In the Valley of Elah”
Viggo Mortensen in “Eastern Promises”

Performance by an actor in a supporting role
Casey Affleck in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”
Javier Bardem in “No Country for Old Men”
Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Charlie Wilson’s War”
Hal Holbrook in “Into the Wild”
Tom Wilkinson in “Michael Clayton”

Performance by an actress in a leading role
Cate Blanchett in “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”
Julie Christie in “Away from Her”
Marion Cotillard in “La Vie en Rose”
Laura Linney in “The Savages”
Ellen Page in “Juno”

Performance by an actress in a supporting role
Cate Blanchett in “I’m Not There”
Ruby Dee in “American Gangster”
Saoirse Ronan in “Atonement”
Amy Ryan in “Gone Baby Gone”
Tilda Swinton in “Michael Clayton”

Best Original Screenplay
"Juno"
"Lars and the Real Girl"
"Michael Clayton"
"Ratatouille"
"The Savages"

Best Adapted Screenplay
"Atonement"
"Away From Her"
"Diving Bell and Butterfly"
"No Country For Old Men"
"There Will Be Blood"

Best Foreign Film
"Beaufort" -Israel
"The Counterfeiters" -Austria
"Katyn" -Poland
"Mongol" -Kazakshtan
"12" -Russia

Animated Film
"Persepolis"
"Ratatouille"
"Surf's Up"

Cinematography
"Assassination of Jesse James" -Deakins
"Atonement" -Garvey
"Diving Bell and Butterfly" -Kaminski
"No Country For Old Men" -Deakins
"There Will Be Blood" -Elswit

Art Direction
American Gangster -Max
Atonement -Greenwood
The Golden Compass -Gassner
Sweeney Todd -Ferretti
There Will Be Blood -Fisk

Costume Design
Across the Universe -Wolsky
Atonement -Durran
Elizabeth the Golden Age -Byrne
Sweeney Todd -Atwood
La Vie En Rose -Marit Allen

Achievement in sound editing
“The Bourne Ultimatum”
“No Country for Old Men”
“Ratatouille”
“There Will Be Blood”
“Transformers”

Best Film Editing
The Bourne Ultimatum -Rouse
The Diving Bell and Butterfly -Welfling
Into the Wild -Cassidy
No Country For Old Men -"Roderick Jaynes" (i.e. The Coen Bros)
There Will Be Blood -Riegel & Tichenor

Original Score
3:10 To Yuma -Beltrami
Atonement -Marianelli
The Kite Runner -Iglesias
Michael Clayton -Howard
Ratatouille -Giacchino

Best Original Song
"Falling Slowly" Once
"Happy Working Song" Enchanted
"So Close" Enchanted
"That's How You Know" Enchanted
"Raise It Up" August Rush

Cause of glee: Laura Linney for The Savages. Having been snubbed at basically every single awards precursor, I had begun to accept that Linney would not be getting her third nomination. But hey, my griping was NOT all for naught! The only tinge of sadness comes from the fact that Angelina Jolie didn't get in for A Mighty Heart, which I loved.
Cause of glum: I know it was a long, long shot that Todd Hayne's would recieve a nomination for I'm Not There, but the slight possibility was always in the back of my mind. Other inevitable lock-outs included Gabriel Byrne for Jindabyne and Kate Bush's original song.
Still fuming: Jonny Greenwood. Argh.
Source of nationalist pride: Ireland's claiming four nominees: the song from Once, Daniel Day Lewis, cinematographer Séamus McGarvey and, of course, Saoirse Ronan.
Source of nationalist distain: Saoirse Ronan is really not that hard to pronounce. Neither is Marion Cotillard, mind you.
Qu'est ce-que? Three songs from Enchanted? Really? "That's How You Know" is the only one that's been in my head at all since I saw the film. That would have been enough, I think (leaving room for Kate. Voilá!)

I'm officially declaring myself Team Affleck, Linney and Coen. The rest I still have to see/decide on.

Some awards or something..

I think I speak for all of us when I say, "This town...(aah-aah) Is becoming like a Ghost Town (aah-aah)..."

No, wait. What? Ah, yes. The 79th Annual Academy Awards. Mostly Yays, a couple of Nays but nothing to get sulky over. I was only able to see the highlights on RTE 2 tonight because A) I don't have Sky Movies and B) I was not arsed staying up till 4am watching them anyway. So, I spent all of today avoiding newspapers, radio and anyone who might know who won the awards I had any interest in. I don't have too much to say because I didn't have a pen to hand to jot down any amusing/interesting things, so I'll just hope I remembered this stuff right.

Things I liked:

Pan's Labyrinth winning Cinematography, Art Direction and Make-Up. Even though it deserved to win Best Original Screenplay and Foreign Film, at least the beautiful look of the film was honoured. Guillermo del Toro just rocks, I've never seen the man look annoyed or bored or pissed off.

Alan Arkin getting all teary-eyed at his speech. There were a lot of tears, actually. Not to an embarrassing extent, mind. Just...nice.

Future Ex Vice-Presidential Nominee (or whatever he calls himself) Al Gore winning for An Inconvenient Truth.

I also thought it hilarious that Dreamgirls didn't win any of their three Best Song nominations! They just kind of screamed their way through the songs, and although Randy Newman is a personal hero of mine, his song with James Taylor put me into a coma for four minutes. Melissa Etheridge deserved to win for her song from An Inconvenient Truth.

The two montage thingies I liked best were the Foreign Film and Ennio Moricone theme music one. I enjoyed spotting all the films in the Foreign Films montage, well, some of them. So happy that All About My Mother was there. I didn't like...yell and point at the screen in happiness. Eh, no. Not at all.

Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst walking out to the strains of the Spidey theme music.

One part I so did not get was when Ellen DeGeneres (who was a pretty good host) was hoovering up in the front row. What was that about? Funny though, especially Meryl Streep just sticking out her legs to avoid the hoover and Penelope Cruz's frantic rush to gather up her huge skirt out of the way.

My favourite part of the evening was Martin Scorcese finally winning his Best Director Oscar. When they announced his name, my sister and I jumped up. He was so cute and disbelieving.


Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Rick. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Please, please. Thank you. Thank you. Could you double-check the envelope, please? I mean, I'm overwhelmed with this honor from the Academy and also the honor of being presented by my old, old friends. We go back 37 years. I'm so moved, so moved.

And afterwards, when The Departed won Best Picture, Marty was just standing in the wings looking slightly bemused. Whippie!


Things I didn't like:

Those fucking penguins won Animation. What the ho? I never saw it, but screw 'em. Monster House was such a great film.

Everyone knew I was still rooting for Penelope Cruz for Best Actress - but I wasn't too shocked when they called Helen Mirren. She had a very gracious speech though and from the clips I've seen, her performance was astounding.

Forrest Whitikar's speech was too long. I'm still glad he won, but poor Peter O'Toole looked devastated. Aww.

Diane Keaton needs to act her age and stop with the hand movements. Her and Jack Nicholson were kind of irritating presenting the Best Picture. Didn't he present it last year, and make that hilarious "wtf" face when Crash won? Hah. No such surprises this time.

My favourite award: It's got to be Marty.
My least favourite award: Um...Happy Feet.
Best Presenter: George Clooney
Worst Presenter: Cameron Diaz. She totally fluffed her lines.
Best Dressed: Hard. I liked Kate Winslet's dress and Penelope Cruz's one too. Meryl Streep looked kind of drunk, but still good. The men are obviously harder to judge because they all had tuxedos on.. Actually, Ellen had some funky suits.
Worst Dressed: I hated what Kirsten Dunst was wearing, but I fear my hatred toward her is clouding my judgement. Nah, it was just an ugly dress.
Funniest Moment: Unintentionally funny, when Ennio Moricone was giving his speech and Clint Eastwood was supposed to translate, but just stood there like a wooden plank. Awkward silence. Then, Eastwood says "Yeeeeah". Which was just...hilarious. His speech (when Eastwood finally copped on to himself) was very touching though.

I really need to get to bed now, so I'll leave you with some pretty pictures.



Okay, pretend George Lucas isn't in this one. He angers me. The other three are cool though.