Oscar

Ah yes, The Oscars. All the fun of the fair. This years, much to me incredulous enjoyment, has surprassed itelf by being even more baffling that before. The added bonus for me, and perhaps nobody else, is that I've been following who the potential nominees might be, since August, back in the glorious indian summer where what-the-fuck nominees like Norah Jones, Reservation Road, Clive Owen in Elizabeth II - The Quickening, Claire Danes were being touted as shoe ins. Two hefty flops, a nonexistant movie, and I can't even remember what Claire Danes even did in the last 6 years let alone a potentially Oscar winning turn in the last 12 months later, and we have our final line up.
The boring thing about this year is that the majority of the awards are yawning chasms of dull two-horse races which probably means it won't be much fun on the night. It does mean the nonsense nominees crowbarred into each category makes the nominations more fun. For example, it's probably so obvious reliable nut job Daniel Day Lewis is going to ace the best actor/'tache award that they might as well have not bothered announcing four other nominees. On the bad side, this means shoe-horning in Tommy Lee Jones, who may or may not be a revelatory genius in 'In the Valley of Elah' and I do have a lot of time for him, but this boring excuse to recognise Academy darling Paul Haggis (Tom Hanks with a pen) is a waste of a nominee. As is Johnny Depp, who once again is used as a trendy folly to avoid nominating people in films nobody went to see again. See also George Clooney, who let us not forget, won Best Supporting Actor two years ago for his astonishingly dull performance in the equally diabolical 'Syriana', still to this day the only film I've left the cinema before it's finished. Somehow, Michael Clayton (starring Clooney as a Lawyer) manages to look even more boring than that. The good news is of course that Viggo Mortensen's naked knife fighting and preposturous Eastern European accent have not gone unnoticed.Eastern Promisese was awesome, although I didn't think VIggo Mortensen was anywhere near the best thing about it, naked knife fight or no naked knife fight.
There Will Be Blood has earned itself a slew of nominations, no doubt partly becaue it's directed by, and stars two frustratingly unproductive members of the Hollywood fraternity, so I mostly want them to win everything because it's essentially acting as a statement for them both to make more fucking films. The fillm is probably going to be awesome, but it's also about oil and greed, which let us not forget, is what Syryiana was about, It also looks a bit like a Carnivale, only with Paul Dano being a quasi-religious ballbag instead of a bunch of circus freaks. Leave that element to Daniel Day Lewis and his moustache.
Juno has gone squarely from being a film I'd quite like to see, to being annoying the point of wanted to never hear another single fucking thing about it ever again. It is, of course, the token indie comedy, a category created by the baffling overpopularity of Little Miss Shunshine last year, which probably did wonders for the Oscars street cred, hence the hideous overshowing of Juno. Surely this film is just Knocked Up for people who people who want to pretend they didn't go and see Knocked Up. A film for people who want to appear cool without actually being so. When I found out the soundtrack was almost all songs by the Moldy Peaches and Kimya Dawson I realised where I stood with Juno. It may star Ellen Page, wank-fantasy for plankton in Death Cab For Cutie T shirts, but I'll give this one a wide birth. Get it?
Best original song is a category I always love for two reasons. Firstly, it's so masively unimportant to the rest of the night. Secondly, it adds a level of surrealism when people like Paul McCartney hop on stage and sing. Qute often too, this is the point where the ceremony becomes a psychedelic nightmare, with hopeless concepts like Beyonce Knowles singnig every song, or recreating the burning car scene from Crash onstage with people moving really slowly from the wreckage. Hilarious. Thankfully, the nominations saved us from having to listen to a Pearl Jam song on the night, however, three songs from Enchanted means that, like last year, I'm going to have to watch three nearly identical performances straight after one another. The other nominations ('Once' which I refuse to believe is that good because it's music based on songs by the fucking Frames!) and 'August Rush, a film I've never even heard of) are also a bit of a waste of time.
Next point of query is all about best Foreign Language picture. I really need to read the small print regarding this category, becuase it seems to be a joke. I think the rules are that each country is only allowed to submit one film for nomination. This doesn't explain how France can have La Vie En Rose, Persipolis, and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly nominated for three different awards, and none of them being nominated for best Foreign Language Picture. What happened here? What we're left with, is nominations for five films I know nothing about whatsoever, rather than being a three-way fight between one of the best films of last year, and what look like two of the best this year. This is probably as good a time as any to bring up this category last year, which was won by The Lives of Others. I enjoyed ;looking at the Bafta nominations this year because after unaccountably forgetting The Lives of Others even existed last year, they've gone hilariously overboard his year by seemingly nominating it in every category under the sun, including best Picture, best director and best actor! Not that I mind, because it was probably the best film released in 2007 full stop, but there's acknowledging your error, and then there's this.
I really hate it when films gets Best Picture nominations, and next-to-fuck-all else. In my opinion, best picture nominations need to be well-rounded affairs with lots of good things going. Which is the main reason why I like to pretend things like Munich and Letters From Iwo Jima were nominated in recent years purely for their clout rather than their merit. This year we have Atonement, which surely doesn't have any clout whatsoever unless having James McAvoy counts as 'clout'. I have no time for this film, it looks boring, it's a boring choice of nomination, it's obvioulsly going to wipe it's hoity-toity ass with the Baftas, it's got James McAvoy in it, we're all going to die horribly, and if this wins best picture, then we might as well all give up on trying to understand how life works.
The smaller categories are always a riot, mostly because you can say things like "Transformers got more nominations than Charlie Wilsons War" as if makes the war between Autobots and Deceptacons a more valid subject matter than the demise of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Best screenplay is good. not least because I work in a bookshop, and it might mean we get sent more Alice Munro books because of ' Away From Her' because Alice Munro is a really good writer. Interestingly, 'Away From Her' has been adapted for screen, and directed by Sarah Polley, who if you don't already know, is the gill in Zach Snyders remake of Dawn of the Dead. Believe. I've also got an extended interest in Lars and the Real Girl, which is apparently about Ryan Gosling having it off with a blow up doll. Yawn - Juno gets another nomination, and it turns out it's written by - Yawn - an ex stripper who writes an online blog. Urgh. I'm pleased that The Bourne Ultimatum got noticed in the tedious technical categories, but it's shameful that Michael Clayton, which looks like a terminally dull equivalent of Bourne-with-lawyers gets all the big guns blazing.
Lastly, but by no means leastly, the supporting actor categories. I think for the first time in the history of my lacklustre following if the Oscars, I've actually seen two of the films where best supporting actor have cropped up. Philip Seymour Hoffman is amazing in Charlie Wilsons War, despite that film being a load of old shite. To be fair, Philip Seymour Hoffman could star in an all-mime remake of Jingle All the Way, and he's still be nothing but completely amazing, so this a sure fire guarantee. I'd have liked to have seen 'preposturous casting of the year' Ken Stott nominated for his role in the same film, but I'm guessing the Academy voters are still putting their eyes back in their sockets at such a ludicrous choice to play the Israeli chief. Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men, as a psychopathic manifestation of Mickey Dolenz from the Monkees is a mix of outrageously terrifying, and and absolute riot and really should win. I forget who else is nominated here, apart from the token old guy who appears for about ten minutes in a fairly average role and then wins an Oscar for his entire career. As for supporting actress, Cate Blanchett's Stars in Their Eyes impersonation of Bob Dylan swaggers above everyone else, and rightly so. However, although she is frankly astonishing in 'I'm Not There', her storyline was my least favourite, and I thought Charlotte Gainsbourg and Heath Ledgers story arc and performances were more interesting and engaging. And I'm not just saying that because he's dead.