The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actor & Best Supporting Actress – 2008
I remember 2008. I did amazingly well in my picks this year. Mostly because I knew the Academy was going to ignore The Dark Knight minus the one obvious nomination and the other random one it got. I think I only missed like 4 of all the categories. Which is good, since I had a competition where I was going to buy dinner for whoever outguessed me and I think like ten people did. Go me. Anyway, these categories weren’t hopelessly competitive. One was the biggest landslide I think ever and the other was pretty locked even though I can’t see why. I guess all’s well that ends well.
Best Supporting Actor – 2008
And the nominees were…
Josh Brolin, Milk
Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Picture & Best Director – 2007
This was a tough year. One where, even though I’d have voted a different way on Best Picture, you really can’t fault their decision too much (or can you?). I thought these five were a really strong set of nominees. Personally I’d have gone another way with the fifth nominee, but, the Academy is the Academy. Still, these five are all good films. Good job, Academy, for picking well. And good job, Hollywood, for giving us the best year probably in all the 2000s.
Best Picture – 2007
And the nominees were…
Atonement (Focus Features)
Juno (Fox Searchlight)
Michael Clayton (Warner Bros.)
No Country for Old Men (Miramax, Paramount Vantage)
There Will Be Blood (Paramount Vantage, Miramax) (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor & Best Actress – 2007
Dare I say it? Did they actually get both of these right? Yeah, they did. Frighteningly so. Best Actor was a no-decision. This was perhaps the best male lead performance of the decade. Best Actress was between two very, very good performances, and in my mind, they picked the correct one, though I’d have been happy with either. Hooray, good decisions.
Best Actor – 2007
And the nominees were…
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
George Clooney — In my mind, without Daniel Day Lewis going all ape shit on this category, Clooney wins this hands down. He gave an amazing performance in this film, and it’s a shame he didn’t win. But really, with Mr. Plainview in the category, he’s a distant second choice. But still, he’s great in this film. He’s a lawyer who is his firm’s “fixer” — think the Winston Wolf of the legal world. He makes problems go away. And when he finds out his mentor, Tom Wilkinson, went crazy in a deposition room, he starts dealing with that. Slowly he figures out a conspiracy, and, when bad shit starts to happen, his loyalties begin to sway. It’s a very good performance, and I hate that I can’t vote for it. But… (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actor & Best Supporting Actress – 2007
Oh, this year. One mostly no-brainer and the other — well, what happened there? This year was actually a very good year for movies. I went back and looked — there are at least twenty legitimate good to great films that came out that year. It’s actually kind of incredible. But, in these races, well…
Best Supporting Actor – 2007
And the nominees were…
Casey Affleck, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Charlie Wilson’s War
Hal Holbrook, Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton
Casey Affleck — This is sort of a quasi-lead performance, but, it’s more of an ensemble film. I’d have loved if Pitt got a Best Actor nom for this, because he deserved it. Actually, the film deserved a Best Picture nomination too, but, we’ll let that go. (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Picture & Best Director – 2006
The year justice was served. Though the dish is best served warm, this one felt more reheated. They kind of just went through the motions here. They were like, “Fine, we’ll give Marty the fucking Oscar.” I’m not complaining, though. He’s deserved it like ten times over already. I think they felt the need to give him Best Picture to so they can be like, “If we give him Best Director for a Best Picture, then its like we set a benchmark and we have an excuse for not giving it to him all those other times.” But, whatever, this, to me, were actually perfect decisions. They voted for the best picture on this list. I’d have nominated some other films, but, you know, take what you can get.
Best Picture – 2006
And the nominees were…
Babel (Paramount Vantage)
The Departed (Warner Bros.)
Letters from Iwo Jima (Warner Bros.)
Little Miss Sunshine (Fox Searchlight)
The Queen (Miramax) (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor & Best Actress – 2006
More blandness. Weak, weak categories. To the point where the people I’m voting for are purely for the people and absolutely not for the performances. There’s almost nothing to say about these. They’re just — not interesting.
Best Actor – 2006
And the nominees were…
Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
Peter O’Toole, Venus
Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness
Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland
DiCaprio — Why — and I mean this from the bottom, top and center of my heart — would they nominate Leo for Blood Diamond and not for The Departed? I mean, seriously. All he does in this is put on a South African accent, run around a bit, and die. I’m pretty sure that’s it. The Departed was seriously a hell of a performance. I know he refused to campaign for it, but, when has that stopped anyone? You missed the boat, Academy. (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actor & Best Supporting Actress – 2006
This year was a weak year for acting. A weak, weak year. They either picked bad choices or unworthy ones. It was weird. They were voting on the person and not on the performance. Seriously, looking at these lists, how bland can you get?
Best Supporting Actor – 2006
And the nominees were…
Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine
Jackie Earl Haley, Little Children
Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond
Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls
Mark Wahlberg, The Departed
Arkin — A lot of factors went into this one. First, it is a very entertaining performance. I mean, he didn’t actually do all that much, but, it was a veteran nomination. He’s been putting in solid work for years. It was only a matter of time. Also, they really, really didn’t want Eddie Murphy to win. That was for two reasons. One, because the performance wasn’t really all that great. Two, Eddie Murphy is liked and a fine actor and all, but, he makes such shit movies. That one wasn’t a dealbreaker though. Though maybe it was. But then again, how do you explain Sandra Bullock? I think the real dealbreaker was Eddie Murphy’s behavior in the business. He’s not exactly the Clooney type. But, I can see why they voted Arkin based on this list. This is actually a perfect time to reward a veteran. Plus, Arkin is hysterical as the heroin addict grandfather. So, that works. (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Picture & Best Director – 2005
And here we go. The category that caused a thousand scandals. I remember this race fondly. I had seen almost all the films (except Munich, which was released like three days before the ceremony, essentially), and knew the race was essentially between Brokeback and Crash. Now, I had enjoyed Crash. Didn’t love it, but I enjoyed it. And Brokeback — I had seen right around the time all the hoopla had just started to begin.
Now, let me say this now — I never understand why people get so fucking crazy about films like this. Brokeback and The Kids are All Right are two films that deal with gay characters and do so in a casual way. For the most part. They’re gay, and that’s it. They’re obviously wildly different films, but for some reason, just because they’re dealing with gay characters, everyone seems to think that makes the films incredibly better. In the case of The Kids are All Right, I didn’t get it at all. That, to me, was a marginally decent film where the main characters just happened to be gay. Other people saw that and were like, “Oh my God, they’re gay and they’re normal!” And were heralding it the best movie of the decade just because someone treated a gay character the way they’re supposed to treat them — like everyone else. Brokeback, though, is the better film, and I can actually see why it should have been nominated for Best Picture. But seriously, winning? Are you serious? Nothing happens! They go into the woods, do nothing for an hour — there are random little episodes like running into a bear and maybe they say like ten words here or there — and then randomly, they fuck. Dude spits on his hand though, and that’s awesome. But still, they fuck, and then they become lovers, and then they go home. And they marry women. And we see them marrying women. Then their lives are miserable except when they see each other, and we see their lives fall apart. In a way this is kind of like Blue Valentine with an extra half hour of run time. And cowboys. I see why this was good from a “genre” perspective — though it’s really not a western. I mean, it kind of is, but also isn’t. It’s a marginal western at best. I really don’t get why this should have won Best Picture, at all. And to be fair, Crash shouldn’t have won either.
I will say, before I tell you what I think should have won instead (though it should be woefully obvious when you see what the five nominees are and what I’ve already said about them), going into Oscar night, people weren’t entirely sure what was going to happen between these two, and it went right down to the wire. I had been rooting hard for Crash at this point — not because I loved the film but because I hate rooting for the huge favorite, especially since I didn’t even love the film all that much. Whatever love I had for it went right out the window once everyone went ape shit over it. But, when Best Picture was going to be announced, and they had Jack Nicholson come out with the envelope, I knew then and there that Crash was going to win. I even remember saying, the second that happened, “I would lay all the money in the world in Crash winning right now — because there is no way Jack Nicholson would ever announce that a gay cowboy movie had just won Best Picture.” It just didn’t fit. Plus now, I have that image in my head of Nicholson saying, “Crash,” in that Nicholson way of his. I just wanted to relay that story. It’s very memorable for me. (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor & Best Actress – 2005
Come Oscar night, these were two “no-brainer” wins, even though, in hindsight, they seem — well, one of them, anyway — like upsets. It’s strange how one’s allegiances can change based on time, other nominations, and lack of death.
Anyway, let’s check these out…
Best Actor – 2005
And the nominees were…
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Terrence Howard, Hustle & Flow
Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
David Strathairn, Good Night & Good Luck
Philip Seymour Hoffman — One of my favorite things to do when looking at awards — because I’m all about random patterns and useless data — is see, when each person wins, where their name fell within the alphabetical order of nominees. It’s like when they rank the winning percentages of the post positions in the Kentucky Derby. And they tell you that a certain post position has only won once, while another one has won the most times. Well, I haven’t done anything like that — yet — but I do find it interesting that his last name begins with H and he’s the first nominee alphabetically. I am curious though where he fits into the pantheon of alphabetized actors, and whether him being first helped or hurt his theoretical chances, and whether or not I could turn this into a thing, and use it to further predict awards races that are pretty much decided come Oscar night anyway. Yes, these are the things I think about. (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Supporting Actor & Best Supporting Actress – 2005
Ah, 2005, the year of the controversy. Everything changed after this. Even the Academy had to lay low for a few years (5, to be exact) before returning to their babies. This year was like when Michael Corleone killed McCluskey and Sollozo and had to duck out to Sicily for a while. Personally — and we’ll get to this when I go over the categories — I agree with the sentiment, but not with the film. But, they definitely fucked up. It was a strange time in their lives. You know, they were drunk, and were feeling fat that day, and had just talked to their mother, and just weren’t ready to make the commitment. Anyway, let’s start from the support. Then we can get to the lead dogs and the big picture. Actually, this is kind of like second base. Take out the support towers, infiltrate the facility then get in, do your thing and get out. I totally just compared the Oscars to sex vis a vis the analogy of a spy mission. I also just used vis a vis. That’s a keeper.
Best Supporting Actor – 2005
And the nominees were…
George Clooney, Syriana
Matt Dillon, Crash
Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man
Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain
William Hurt, A History of Violence (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Picture & Best Director – 2004
If there were ever a corollary year for Best Picture to this one, in the last decade (because 1998 is obviously the best) 2004 is it. Obviously 1998 fits better, as the film that won is a big, lush period piece campaigned for hard by Harvey Weinstein that beat a film that was regarded at the time, and still is regarded, as a modern classic. The jury is still out on whether the film that got beat is a modern classic, so, that’s why I go with 2004. A film that plays right into the Academy’s sensibilities, using emotion to mask a general blandness, instead of brilliant filmmaking. That much can’t be denied. As it stands, the film that is going to lose Best Picture, despite being the critical and social (based more on the pun than the actuality. I really don’t know what the idiots like or don’t like) choice, will be great filmmaking losing to a film that’s meant to be “emotional” (which, it didn’t make me cry, which, I cry at Speed Racer — love that movie).
Makes no goddamn sense. But, the only thing that matters is personal opinion, and that’s theirs. Now I get to have mine.
Best Picture – 2004
And the nominees were…
The Aviator (Warner Bros., Miramax)
Finding Neverland (Miramax)
Million Dollar Baby (Warner Bros.)
Ray (Universal)
Sideways (Fox Searchlight) (more…)
The Oscar Quest: Best Actor & Best Actress – 2004
These two were pretty much a foregone conclusion. Everyone in the world knew that Jamie Foxx couldn’t lose. His Ray Charles was astounding, so he deserved this all the way. There really wasn’t anyone who could have beaten him. And in Actress, someone thought it was a good idea to make the race about Hilary vs. Annette Round Two instead of about the actress who was actually the most deserving in the race — so, that was pretty clear cut as well (Annette was not winning).
I really don’t have all too much to say here, since the Academy got one of them right, and one of them wrong. But the one they got wrong is one they’d normally get wrong, and it’s only made worse by the fact that she’s won one already and isn’t that good of an actress to have two.
Best Actor – 2004
And the nominees were…
Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda
Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Aviator
Clint Eastwood, Million Dollar Baby
Jamie Foxx, Ray (more…)
