The 81st Academy Award Nominations: The Big Show Goes Small

Do you know how long I have been waiting to duel with someone. Seriously! I have the sword and everything.

For movie fanatics all over the world, this is the morning we wipe our crusted eyelids, roll clumsily out of bed and collapse on the couch to see the live announcement of the Academy Award nominations. It is more than a testament to the passion we have for cinema, it is a statement of how much we want to quickly and violently debate the fairness of the Academy’s choices. So, let the debate begin…

Best Motion Picture of the Year

– The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

– Frost/Nixon

– Milk

– The Reader

– Slumdog Millionaire (deserves to win, most likely winner)

What can anyone do to stop the steamrolling power of the Slumdog? Pretty much nothing. Sweeping every category it was nominated in at the Golden Globes, Slumdog has all the momentum and all the passion of an Oscar winner. It’s uplifting, full of hope and adversity, and overall everything the Academy voters love to rally around. When it wins for Best Picture it will also help paint the picture of the Academy as a more international accepting body of voters. I give great credit to Benjamin Button and Frost/Nixon for both being incredible films, but I don’t see them climbing over Slumdog for a win. Milk to me is over-nominated and I would have gladly let this one go in favor of The Dark Knight or Revolutionary Road. My disappointment over the snubbing of The Dark Knight isn’t truly due to thinking it would win the category, but because it would have given some validation to the comic book genre and really helped to boost the idea that these are not just costumed vigilantes on a violence bender, they are incredibly complex and moving stories available to be enjoyed by adults as well as kids. As for The Reader, Ricky Gervais must have been right when he told Kate Winslet at the Golden Globes, “See, just do the Holocaust movie and awards just come rolling in.”

Best Achievement in Directing

– David Fincher: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

– Ron Howard: Frost/Nixon

– Gus Van Sant: Milk

– Stephen Daldry: The Reader

– Danny Boyle: Slumdog Millionaire (deserves to win, most likely winner)

This is the first time since 1944 where there is an exact match between the Best Picture category and the Best Director. Commonly the two awards go hand-in-hand, but there is usually one oddball or mismatch between them. Not this year and my feelings remain pretty much the same from the previous category. Danny Boyle will walk away the winner.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role

– Richard Jenkins: The Visitor (deserves to win)

– Frank Langella: Frost/Nixon

– Sean Penn: Milk

– Brad Pitt: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

– Mickey Rourke: The Wrestler (most likely winner)

Now here is some excitement and tension for the night. The inclusion of dark horse Richard Jenkins throws a distinct wrench in the celebratory plans of Mickey Rourke, who took the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama. Jenkins hands down deserves the nomination and I am pulling for him to win. All these performances were incredibly strong, which could split the voting and leave Jenkins available for the sneak attack. The big money is on Rourke because of his Cinderella-esque return to the limelight, but I’m personally hedging my bets and putting some small change on Jenkins. Sean Penn can proudly stand here as the one thing I agree with in terms of nominations for Milk. He was the lightning rod for this film and it all hinged on his stellar performance. Langella and Pitt both were terrific, but the momentum and buzz are not behind them this year.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role

– Josh Brolin: Milk

– Robert Downey Jr.: Tropic Thunder

– Philip Seymour Hoffman: Doubt

– Heath Ledger: The Dark Knight (deserves to win, most likely winner)

– Michael Shannon: Revolutionary Road

I was thinking about just leaving this area with one word, “Duh”, but that would steal my opportunity to praise and shout for the nomination of Michael Shannon. He was the most outstanding and powerful part of Revolutionary Road and I am thrilled he got the nod here. Yet, with that said, let me now return to my previous thought…

“Duh.”

Ledger takes this.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role

– Anne Hathaway: Rachel Getting Married (deserves to win)

– Angelina Jolie: Changeling

– Melissa Leo: Frozen River

– Meryl Streep: Doubt

– Kate Winslet: The Reader (most likely winner)

Who is Melissa Leo and what is this film, Frozen River? Pulling a repectful Jenkins-like move, Leo throws this semi-strong category into a whirl. Hathaway and Winslet are the two obvious front runners, with Hathaway almost sure to take the Independent Spirit Award the night before the Oscars and Winslet still fanning herself off after the double grab at the Golden Globes for both her roles this year. Holocaust subject matter aside, I think Hathaway was stronger in her role as an ex-junkie struggling with reintegrating herself into her own family, where as if Winslet had been nominated for Revolutionary Road instead of The Reader I would be more inclined to begrudgingly hand it to her. Streep can’t be totally counted out, especially since all four of the main actors from Doubt got nominations, but I think she will fall by the wayside here. Maybe when she lands there, she can bring Jolie a drink, she’s been down there all year.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role

– Amy Adams: Doubt

– Penelope Cruz: Vicky Christina Barcelona

– Viola Davis: Doubt

– Taraji P. Henson: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

– Marisa Tomei: The Wrestler (deserves to win, most likely winner)

Even though Vicky Christina Barcelona took home the Golden Globe for Best Comedy, I think Penelope is the only one is this category you can count out of the running. The two Doubt women, Davis and Adams, were both sensational, but they might end up splitting that audience in half. This leaves Henson and Tomei to battle it out, with Tomei a touch ahead since I think she only lost out on the Globe because she was battling Winslet on her night-of-all-nights. If Henson pulls it out here, she will most likely be one of very few of the thirteen nominations for Button that will result in a win.

Best Animated Film of the Year

– Bolt

– Kung Fu Panda

– Wall-E (deserves to win, most likely winner)

I’m still baffled by all the acclaim for Bolt, but it really doesn’t matter this year. Wall-E lost out on a Best Picture nod most likely because everyone just wanted to give it this award and be done with it. Plan on Pixar walking away once again, proud of its tiny trashman.

Best Adapted Screenplay

– Eric Roth: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

– John Patrick Shanley: Doubt

– Peter Morgan: Frost/Nixon

– David Hare: The Reader

– Simon Beaufoy: Slumdog Millionaire (deserves to win, most likely winner)

There’s a good chance Slumdog will continue its reign here, but it’s a strong category so anything could really happen. The Reader has pulled in lots of support and you can count on a huge studio push for the win, but the rest of the pack are no slouches either. Shanley wrote the play for Doubt as well as the screenplay and he was already heaped with acclaim for the stage version (surprisingly, the same holds true for Morgan with Frost/Nixon). Hare succeeded greatly with taking an incredibly minute starting point, a much loved, but much thinner short story, so his skill and credit comes from the expansion and illumination of tale we are lucky to not have missed. Anyone’s game, but I’ll lean towards the Bollywood train based on sheer momentum.

Best Original Screenplay

– Courtney Hunt: Frozen River

– Mike Leigh: Happy-Go-Lucky

– Martin McDonagh: In Bruges

– Dustin Lance Black: Milk

– Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon: Wall-E (deserves to win, most likely winner)

Again, this is a category where Milk really doesn’t fit. I don’t see it as an original story since it was a biopic and mostly a dramatization of the documentary, The Life and Times of Harvey Milk. It’s a good film, but not what I consider an original story. Then there’s that mystery movie, Frozen River, once again. I really need to see this. Wall-E deserves writing acclaim without a doubt since the first twenty minutes were done beautifully with virtually no dialogue at all. That’s talent, people. Happy-Go-Lucky and In Bruges are getting more acclaim since both movies had their main actors recognized with Golden Globes this year, but I think this one will still end in the incredibly cute storage bin of our friend, Wall-E.

Best Achievement in Art Direction

– Changeling

– The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (deserves to win, most likely winner)

– The Dark Knight

– The Duchess

– Revolutionary Road

The Duchess is a period drama and those tend to do well in this category. As for the rest, they are all incredibly picturesque and beautifully designed films, ranging from the aging, earthy tones of Button to the stark and stunning colors of Road, any of these films deserves the accolade on this night. Just for the sake of picking a winner, I’ll toss my tiny iota of support behind Button. (Sorry, Dark Knight, I still love you.)

Best Achievement in Cinematography

– Changeling

– The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

– The Dark Knight

– The Reader

– Slumdog Millionaire (deserves to win, most likely winner)

Sometimes it can be hard to distinguish the difference between Best Art Direction, which is how the film and its universe looks, and Best Cinematography, which is how the film is shot, which in turn show you how the universe looks. It’s a fine line, but this year I think the inventiveness of movement and pacing coupled with the saturated colors of India are going to bring Slumdog yet one more statue for the night.

Best Achievement in Costume Design

– Australia

– The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (deserves to win, most likely to win)

– The Duchess

– Milk

– Revolutionary Road

Except for The Duchess, these are all dramas set in fairly contemporary time periods, so the costume design was more about complementing the world and environment, whereas in Duchess gets to really show off the fashions of its 18th century era; big hair pieces, huge dresses and rib-crushing corsets. I’ll lean towards Button due it sheer volume of nominations and its clarity of vision inside the entire project, but this is truly a toss-up.

Best Documentary Feature

– The Betrayal

– Encounters at the End of the World

– The Garden

– Man on Wire (most likely to win)

– Trouble the Water

I can’t put “deserves to win” here since I have seen absolutely none of these. I love documentaries, but I happen to miss this grouping completely. I’ve heard amazing things about Man on Wire from both friends and industry readings, so I’ll go with that one.

Best Documentary Short Subject

– The Conscience of Nhem En

– The Final Inch

– Smile Pinki

– The Witness – From the Balcony of Room 306

Umm…[tries to read tea leaves]…uh…The Witness? Yeah, that’ll win.

Best Achievement in Film Editing

– The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

– The Dark Knight

– Frost/Nixon (deserves to win)

– Milk

– Slumdog Millionaire (most likely winner)

Although the editing in Slumdog was sensational, I am happy to announce I think there is actually a better choice in this category. Frost/Nixon tackled a nearly yawn-inducing subject, one last interview with an old and broken man, and turned into a harrowing, sweat-filled ride towed along by brilliant pacing. Do I think it will actually win, nope, but it most certainly gets my vote for most deserving.

Best Foreign Language Film

– The Baader Meinhof Complex

– The Class

– Departures

– Revanche

– Waltz with Bashir (most likely winner)

Bashir took home the Globe and you can expect it will do the same here. Nothing but praise has been heaped on this oddly animated drama and I am itching for my chance to witness it myself.

Best Achievement in Makeup

– The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (most likely to win)

– The Dark Knight

– Hellboy II: The Golden Army (deserves to win)

The real choice here is what you find more impressive, making something look incredibly realistic with a mixture of CGI and practical makeup or making something fantastical come to life with prosthetics and makeup? The former would give you Button as the winner and the latter would give you Hellboy II, while the only makeup worth celebrating in Dark Knight is the insanely creepy and dripping face of the Joker. I would like to see Hellboy win here for the amazing work not only on the main character, but also the underworld villain Prince Nuada and his sister, Princess Nuala.

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score)

– Alexander Desplat: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

– James Newton Howard: Defiance

– Danny Elfman: Milk

– A.H. Rahman: Slumdog Millionaire (deserves to win, most likely winner)

– Thomas Newman: Wall-E

While this might be the happiest group of characters Danny Elfman ever scored for, I think he will lose and quickly return to his gothic roots. Slumdog has a good chance due to its unique international flavor and the Golden Globe A.H. Rahman is already carrying, but the other three are very much in the running.

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song)

– Peter Gabriel: “Down to Earth” from Wall-E (most likely winner)

– Gulzar: “Jai Ho” from Slumdog Millionaire (deserves to win)

– A.R. Rahman, Maya Arulpragasam: “O Saya” from Slumdog Millionaire

There is a distinct lack of the man commonly referred to as “The Boss”! Why Bruce Springsteen didn’t get a nomination for the Golden Globe winning song he wrote and performed for The Wrestler is beyond me. Also surprising is the exclusion of Academy golden oldie, Clint Eastwood, and his warbling diddy for Gran Torino. With those two oddly out of the limelight, Gabriel could indeed walk away with it for his heartwarming tune, but Gulzar’s tune is the ending credits number and backs up a huge Bollywood dance number, which helps lift the audience to their feet after all the yearning and struggling they just witnessed. I’m going to put my mark there, while internally wishing I could actually dance like that.

Best Animated Short Film

– La Maison en Petits Cubes

– Lavatory – Lovestory

– Oktapodi

– Presto (most likely winner)

– This Way Up

Presto is the only one I have seen since it was shown before Wall-E in the theater, but the whole thing is done with no dialogue and is gut-wrenchingly funny. Plus, it’s a Pixar joint, so just give it the gold and be happy they want to make more.

Best Live Action Short Film

– Auf der Strecke (On the Line)

– Mannon on the Asphalt (most likely winner)

– New Boy

– The Pig

– Spielzeugland (Toyland)

I’ll go with Mannon on the Asphalt because it makes me think of a montage of skateboarders faceplanting.

Best Achievement in Sound Editing

– The Dark Knight (deserves to win, most likely winner)

– Iron Man

– Slumdog Millionaire

– Wall-E

– Wanted

The fact Wanted can now call itself an Academy Award nominated film just tickles me. There was some great sound work by all the nominees in this category, but here I will lovingly and joyously put my ballot into the box of Dark Knight. From the sounds of the jet engine of the Batmobile to the bone-crushing thud of Ledger’s head hitting the interrogation room table, this was a symphony of audio accomplishment.

Best Achievement in Sound Mixing

– The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

– The Dark Knight (deserves to win)

– Slumdog Millionaire (most likely winner)

– Wall-E

– Wanted

Evidently Iron Man didn’t mix as well as they edited. Odd. Anyway, I’d still like to see Dark Knight get this, but I think the voting block might split this one up. There might still be enough uber-love for Slumdog to pull this one through for them as well.

Best Achievement in Visual Effects

– The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (deserves to win, most likely winner)

– The Dark Knight

– Iron Man

This is the one category where Button truly deserves to win, hands down. The character of Benjamin was so incredible and adorable, I couldn’t felt any more sympathy and yearning for him if he were sitting right in front of me. The only reason it worked was the sheer realism of this aged and decrepit child, so without any reservations, this one goes to them.

If you made it all the way down here, thanks once again for reading and I would love to hear your thoughts. Tell me I’m right, tell me I’m wrong, make me believe I missed out on something truly great or just let me know what you thought of that box of Raisinets you got at the movies (Were yours stale? Mine were last time, but I can’t stop getting them).
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The Wrestler: Love Letter from the Top Rope

This is definitely going to hurt me more than it does you.

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

I still can still see myself, sitting on that brown tattered couch in the living room, wondering how much change has found its way into the holes in those old cushions. I held the remote control in my tiny hand and flipped constantly, trying to battle the onslaught of commercials for break-dancing tutorial videos and Nancy Reagan pleading for me to “Just Say No”. Very few things would make the flipping stop or could make me endure the advertising interruptions, and for many years the chief among those was none other than professional wrestling. What many people refer to as a fake sport is in reality nothing different than live theater specializing in acrobatics, fight choreography and mythological storytelling. These men, and now many women, personify the characteristics of good vs. evil, right vs. wrong and heart vs. strength. It may be dramatically simplified, but what goes on inside the squared circle week after week is at its core morality embodied by living, breathing warriors.

The Wrestler is the story of one such warrior, Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson. He once was at the top of the mountain and idolized by legions of fans around the world, but twenty years have passed since those days in the bright, bright spotlight and now the crowds have thinned and the venues have fallen farther away from the stadiums of his past. The effects of the constant battery to his body, from drinking, drugs and the matches themselves, have left Randy in a fight for his own livelihood. With a broken relationship with his daughter and a spark fluttering between him and a local stripper named Cassidy, he has to make a choice if the “real” world away from the cheers and jeers is worth losing the “fake” world inside the ring.

Directed and produced by Darren Aronofsky, The Wrestler is much more than a raw tale of a broken man. This is a love letter to the stars of today and those of the past inside the wrestling world, known to many as “sports entertainment”. The film describes with painful acuity the reality of life behind the curtain and away from the crowds. The players behind the mythic characters deal with physical pain on an almost constant basis; bones broken, necks sprained, skin shredded. And on rare and terrible occasions, lives are lost in pursuit of giving the fans one more big pop. In crafting the fictional tale of Randy ‘The Ram’ Robinson, Darren let audiences who might not ever watch a regular professional wrestling match in their life take a peek into how much dedication and passion these people have for the entertainment which so many people choose to write off as silly and childish. The film is shot honestly with a good deal of handheld camerawork, giving it a subliminal sense of documentary feel. It also jumps around somewhat, skipping beats of time, but that only lends more to the impression that the camera has been around this collapsing goliath for hours and hours on end, searching for those windows into his thoughts.

To get into the soul of a person, many say you have to go through the eyes and this pair happens to belong to the enigmatic Mickey Rourke. Like Sly Stallone enveloping the beef pounding fury of Rocky, Rourke silently struggles with the aching for some sort of connection and the stubborn pull of the spotlight, even as dim as it has gotten for him. It truly will go down as one of the most inspired casting decisions of this year. Rourke was a boxer for a number of years and was four fights away from a major title fight when his doctor told him to quit due to major neurological damage he had already sustained. This wasn’t the role he was born to play, it was the role he was beaten into playing beautifully. Who knows how many of the other story points in Randy’s life mirror those in Rourke’s, but very few people can disappear into a character the way Rourke does here. In recent years, I would say Heath Ledger was the only other person I have seen able to accomplish this feat on a regular basis. Holding strong on either side of this tragically pure performance were Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood. Tomei plays the aforementioned stripper, Cassidy, who also has to keep the line straight between a world of fantasy and the real world back home with her nine-year-old boy and a driver’s license under the name Pam. She lets go in a major way and dives deep into the pool of necessity to show where Cassidy comes from and why she does what she does. Wood plays Randy’s daughter Stephanie, who has been estranged from him for an unknown period of time. She only gets a small handful of scenes, but two of those rarities prove to be the best in the entire film. Wood has rarely strayed from the emotionally tortured characters, especially after her intensely powerful turn at sixteen-years-old in the indie drama, Thirteen. She is now the “it” girl for edgy and troubled young female roles, but we’ll have to wait and see if she can parlay that into playing those same women when she gets older.

In the end what Aronofsky made is a dedication to all those people who live behind their masks and the trials and tribulations they suffer through to make someone else’s day just a little bit better. It’s not wholly selfless; they all get paid for the masks they wear, but to many the money becomes secondary to the rush of the outside world stepping into their carefully crafted fantasy.

Recommendation: For the wrestling fans out there, this is a must see. It truly serves as a validation of your viewership to each and every pay-per-view match. For the rest of the audience, the strength of Rourke’s performance might just make you think a little next time you flip by the WWE on Saturday morning (that’s the World Wrestling Entertainment for those even farther outside the know).

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