Oscars

Rourke vs Penn February 23, 2009

This year's best actor race had two arguably deserving nominees. Of course though it's easy to point out that those voting for Penn voted mostly for Harvey Milk's symbol and message in this day and age, while those voting for Rourke bought into the comeback story and the parallel between the broken down wrestler and Rourke's own life.

But there is one other significant difference. Compare Rourke's speech at the Independent Spirit Awards on Saturday with Penn's from the Oscars. You may prefer one vs another, as the difference is clear. But I am looking forward to the day when Rourke or someone like him will be able to speak freely at the Oscars:

Rourke accepts Independent Spirit Award:

Penn accepts Oscar:

2008 Oscars Roundup February 23, 2009

Another awards year ended last night. The big winner of the night was this time more of a foregone conclusion, as Slumdog Millionaire's success was already expected, the only remaining question being how many awards it would amass. The answer: 8 wins (out of 10 nominations). Benjamin Button only gets 3 wins out of all its 13 nominations, while Dark Knight and Milk each went home with 2 awards. On my predictions I was correct 18/24 getting almost every technical category right, hoping for a miracle on one category (Best Actor), trying too much to guess a surprise win on another (Supporting Actress) and surprised by the only true surprise (excuse the repetition) of the evening: Departures winning Foreign Film category.

Now onto the gossip...

2008 Final Predictions February 21, 2009

It's hard to get excited about this year's races given that 5 out of the top 8 categories are all but awarded. Regardless, you can find the final predictions on all categories on the 2008 Awards page, or you can get just the skinny right here.

The sure winners: Slumdog Millionaire will win Best Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay. Heath Ledger will receive a posthumous award for his Joker performance. Kate Winslet, even though nominated for the more obvious, less subtle of her two major roles this year, will get her overdue win on her 6th nomination at the expense of an arguably better performance from Anne Hathaway.

Best Actor competition is a clear 2-way race between Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke. Penn may have the better interpretation this year and the more important role, but he has recently won for Mystic River and Rourke's comeback story echoed on screen will ultimately gather more votes. Plus, despite siding with Milk's message, many voters would be a bit tired of Penn's holier-than-though speeches. Milk will likely get its win in the Original Screenplay category, even though strong competition is to be expected from the likes of Wall-E or even In Bruges.

Finally, the most contested race in the top categories is Supporting Actress. Penelope Cruz is the frontrunner in most people's mind. However, Viola Davis is getting strong buzz despite the chance that her co-star (Amy Adams) will steal some of the votes away from her. And, last but not least, Taraji Henson has the chance to get the only major win for the most nominated movie of the year - Benjamin Button.

Meet the Nominees February 01, 2009

With three weeks left, the 2008 nominee pages are up. No predictions yet, although... what's there to predict? If you didn't believe it thus far, Saturday the Director's made it even more clear that this is Slumdog Millionaire's year adding the DGA to the already long series of wins.

Regardless, have a look, make your quick shortlist of films to see in the next few weeks and start thinking of who may win what (without wasting too much time on Best Picture, Best Director or Best Supporting Actor though).

Resigning to the Slumdogs January 26, 2009

Last night, the Actors crowned their winners for 2008. Given that Actors make up the majority of the Academy constituency, a lot of people have their eyes on these awards hoping that they will be the best predictor for the Oscars. That's not typically the case though, given that the SAG membership is about 100 times larger than the number of actors in the AMPAS (about 1300 out of a total of 6000 members).

So what happened last night? Heath Ledger won Best Supporting. His win is nothing but cemented for the Oscars as well, the only one that could possibly challenge him being Philip Seymour Hoffman. Kate Winslet won Supporting Actress for her role in The Reader. She is going to compete for leading role at the Oscars, a race in which SAG chose to produce a bit of a surprise.

In a year with some really strong female performances, the perennial awards girl, Meryl Streep was not expected to have much of a chance. Not against Anne Hathaway's breakthrough performance in Rachel Getting Married, Kate Winslet's turn in Revolutionary Road or even Melissa Leo's critically acclaimed role in Frozen River. Yet, it was almost worth giving her the award to see her (act) genuinely surprised, even though, as she jokingly admitted "these awards don't mean much to me anymore". It was also very pleasant to watch, throughout Streep's speech, Anne Hathaway's genuine approving reaction. Anne is young and surely just being nominated was a big thing for her. Plus, the Oscars race is far from over.

Best Actor went to Sean Penn and his win was welcomed by a long ovation. Clearly the actors made a statement regarding the message of the movie and Penn did not disappoint in making it clear that it is all about the message. He also did not disappoint in making a fool of himself. He started with a funny, but fairly awkward joke about noticing the statues package. He then made sure everyone knows he disagreed with some of the nominations (nooo?!). And finally, he wrapped things up by calling idiots "the tv people", which, given the context of the awards, everyone assumed at first was a reference to the TV nominated actors; turns out he was actually talking about the press trying to call the Oscars race between him and Rourke. Wow! That was a tour-de-force, Sean!

Finally, Slumdog Millionaire won the ensemble cast and virtually the strongest endorsement for the Oscars, only a couple of days on the heels of their PGA win. Of course, there is still time for lashback, but things are looking pretty good for Danny Boyle's movie. Anil Kapoor jumped at receiving the award and acted just as obnoxious as his role in the movie. Thankfully, Freida Pinto saved the cast by elegantly reciting by heart all the names of the kid actors that were part of the movie and attributing the win mostly to their efforts.

12 hours later January 22, 2009

About 12 hours after the nominations have been announced, the dust is starting to settle. Before we start dissecting each category and predict the winners, let's have another look at the nominations. The "winner" of the day is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with 13 nominations. History teaches us that this is typically sufficient show of strength for a Best Picture win. Slumdog Millionaire remains the favorite for now as its 10 total nominations are not too shabby either even though it does glaringly lack any acting nod. The SAG awards this Sunday may shed some more light on the actors opinion about the movie, given that they are the largest Academy voting block. To round up the nominations count, Milk and The Dark Knight received 8 each, Wall-E got 6 while Doubt, Frost/Nixon and The Reader received 5 each.

What else stood out?