Nominees for the 84th Academy Awards | Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences

Nominees for the 84th Academy Awards | Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences

The nominations are out and The Help, The Artist and The Descendants have walked away with the lion's share. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo and Warhorse also walk away with a generous helping of nominations. I haven't been able to watch every film nominated, but I managed to see many of them. The nice thing about the Academy Awards, is it encourages you go to watch a film, that you wouldn't have otherwise. I had not seen The King's Speech until after it dominated the awards. I am happy to have taken the time to watch it. While the Oscar's can be solely political (eg. Hurt Locker win over Avatar) and does not always mean a film is the best in its category, it does give you an idea of which movies are worth watching.

"**" indicates my prediction for the winner.

Actor in a Leading Role

• Demián Bichir in "A Better Life"
• George Clooney in "The Descendants" **
• Jean Dujardin in "The Artist"
• Gary Oldman in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"
• Brad Pitt in "Moneyball"

Actor in a Supporting Role

• Kenneth Branagh in "My Week with Marilyn"
• Jonah Hill in "Moneyball"
• Nick Nolte in "Warrior"
• Christopher Plummer in "Beginners"
• Max von Sydow in "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close"  **

Actress in a Leading Role

• Glenn Close in "Albert Nobbs"
• Viola Davis in "The Help" **
• Rooney Mara in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
• Meryl Streep in "The Iron Lady"
• Michelle Williams in "My Week with Marilyn"

Actress in a Supporting Role

• Bérénice Bejo in "The Artist"
• Jessica Chastain in "The Help"
• Melissa McCarthy in "Bridesmaids"
• Janet McTeer in "Albert Nobbs"
• Octavia Spencer in "The Help" **

Animated Feature Film

• "A Cat in Paris" Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli
• "Chico & Rita" Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal
• "Kung Fu Panda 2" Jennifer Yuh Nelson
• "Puss in Boots" Chris Miller
• "Rango" Gore Verbinski

Art Direction

• "The Artist"
  Production Design: Laurence Bennett; Set Decoration: Robert Gould
• "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2"
  Production Design: Stuart Craig; Set Decoration: Stephenie McMillan
• "Hugo"
  Production Design: Dante Ferretti; Set Decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo
• "Midnight in Paris"
  Production Design: Anne Seibel; Set Decoration: Hélène Dubreuil
• "War Horse"
  Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Lee Sandales
  

Cinematography

• "The Artist" Guillaume Schiffman
• "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Jeff Cronenweth
• "Hugo" Robert Richardson
• "The Tree of Life" Emmanuel Lubezki
• "War Horse" Janusz Kaminski

Costume Design

• "Anonymous" Lisy Christl **
• "The Artist" Mark Bridges
• "Hugo" Sandy Powell
• "Jane Eyre" Michael O'Connor
• "W.E." Arianne Phillips

Directing

• "The Artist" Michel Hazanavicius
• "The Descendants" Alexander Payne **
• "Hugo" Martin Scorsese
• "Midnight in Paris" Woody Allen
• "The Tree of Life" Terrence Malick

Documentary (Feature)

• "Hell and Back Again"
  Danfung Dennis and Mike Lerner
• "If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front"
  Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman
• "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory"
  Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky
• "Pina"
  Wim Wenders and Gian-Piero Ringel
• "Undefeated"
  TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay and Richard Middlemas

Documentary (Short Subject)

• "The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement"
  Robin Fryday and Gail Dolgin
• "God Is the Bigger Elvis"
  Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson
• "Incident in New Baghdad"
  James Spione
• "Saving Face"
  Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
• "The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom"
  Lucy Walker and Kira Carstensen

Film Editing

• "The Artist" Anne-Sophie Bion and Michel Hazanavicius
• "The Descendants" Kevin Tent
• "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall
• "Hugo" Thelma Schoonmaker
• "Moneyball" Christopher Tellefsen

Foreign Language Film

• "Bullhead" Belgium
• "Footnote" Israel
• "In Darkness" Poland
• "Monsieur Lazhar" Canada
• "A Separation" Iran

Makeup

• "Albert Nobbs"
  Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnston and Matthew W. Mungle
• "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2"
  Edouard F. Henriques, Gregory Funk and Yolanda Toussieng
• "The Iron Lady"
  Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland

Music (Original Score)

• "The Adventures of Tintin" John Williams
• "The Artist" Ludovic Bource
• "Hugo" Howard Shore
• "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" Alberto Iglesias
• "War Horse" John Williams

Music (Original Song)

• "Man or Muppet" from "The Muppets" Music and Lyric by Bret McKenzie
• "Real in Rio" from "Rio" Music by Sergio Mendes and Carlinhos Brown Lyric by Siedah Garrett

Best Picture

• "The Artist" Thomas Langmann, Producer
• "The Descendants" Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers
• "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" Scott Rudin, Producer
• "The Help" Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers **
• "Hugo" Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Producers
• "Midnight in Paris" Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Producers
• "Moneyball" Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, Producers
• "The Tree of Life" Nominees to be determined
• "War Horse" Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers

Short Film (Animated)

• "Dimanche/Sunday" Patrick Doyon
• "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore" William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg
• "La Luna" Enrico Casarosa
• "A Morning Stroll" Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe
• "Wild Life" Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby

Short Film (Live Action)

• "Pentecost" Peter McDonald and Eimear O'Kane
• "Raju" Max Zähle and Stefan Gieren
• "The Shore" Terry George and Oorlagh George
• "Time Freak" Andrew Bowler and Gigi Causey
• "Tuba Atlantic" Hallvar Witzø

Sound Editing

• "Drive" Lon Bender and Victor Ray Ennis
• "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" Ren Klyce
• "Hugo" Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty
• "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl
• "War Horse" Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom

Sound Mixing

• "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
  David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce and Bo Persson
• "Hugo"
  Tom Fleischman and John Midgley
• "Moneyball"
  Deb Adair, Ron Bochar, Dave Giammarco and Ed Novick
• "Transformers: Dark of the Moon"
  Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush and Peter J. Devlin
• "War Horse"
  Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson and Stuart Wilson

Visual Effects

• "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2"
  Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler and John Richardson
• "Hugo"
  Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman and Alex Henning
• "Real Steel" **
  Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Dan Taylor and Swen Gillberg
• "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"
  Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White and Daniel Barrett
• "Transformers: Dark of the Moon"
  Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew Butler and John Frazier

Writing (Adapted Screenplay)

• "The Descendants" Screenplay by Alexander Payne and Nat Faxon & Jim Rash
• "Hugo" Screenplay by John Logan
• "The Ides of March" Screenplay by George Clooney & Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon
• "Moneyball" Screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin Story by Stan Chervin
• "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" Screenplay by Bridget O'Connor & Peter Straughan **

Writing (Original Screenplay)

• "The Artist" Written by Michel Hazanavicius
• "Bridesmaids" Written by Annie Mumolo & Kristen Wiig
• "Margin Call" Written by J.C. Chandor
• "Midnight in Paris" Written by Woody Allen
• "A Separation" Written by Asghar Farhadi

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the story of the hunt for a Soviet mole high within the ranks of the British Intelligence Service.  The film is an adaptation of a novel written in 1974 by David Cornwell.  Cornwell didn’t have to look far for inspiration for this novel.  He was an MI5 agent whose identity was given to the Russians by double agents, including one very high-ranking member of his service.

The very first thing I noticed as the film started was the cinematography.  In the world of sharp, bright, HD where you can practically count the hairs on an actor’s arm, this movie has a distinct grey and vintage feel.  It has a film grain filter applied, that makes the movie look like it was filmed in the 70’s or 80’s.  Since the story takes place in the 70’s, the effect really adds to the feel of the movie.  The acting is superb.  While most of the characters are stiff and flat, they give the occasional glimpse of raw emotion that shows beneath their dignified fronts are normal men. 

The storyline is incredibly complex, and uses flashbacks to tell much of the story.  Today most directors don’t use inference to communicate important and/or subtle plot details.  This movie is one of the rare exceptions.  Nearly everything in this movie is subtle.  It feels as if you blink, you will miss something important.  I believe that it is going to require a second viewing to catch all the subtleties.  The movie isn’t like most modern spy movies.  There are no high-speed chases, running gun battles, exploding buildings etc.  The movie is strictly intellectual, and I feel is a better story because it is so different.

If you want to go to the movies and just be entertained, this movie is probably not for you.  This movie requires focus and to intuitively understand the character’s actions.  If you like a good intellectual movie, this film definitely fits the bill.  I give it 9 / 10.  

The Season of the Witch (2011)

In Season of the Witch, a knight named Behmen (Nicolas Cage) and his buddy, Felsen (Ron Perlman) are serving in the crusades.  After following orders to kill women and children, they desert and head for home.    When they are captured as deserters they are given the option to assist in escorting a confessed witch to a distant monastery.  They agree and begin the dangerous journey toward their freedom.

The Season of the Witch is quite short at 95 minutes, which is a good thing. The story left me sighing constantly, and shaking my head so much I looked like I had Parkinson's.  The graphics were lame, and done poorly.  The demons in the comedy TV series Reaper, looked better than in this big screen film.  During a sequence where bad guys are dropping down from the roof, it looked as if they kept reusing the same footage of one landing.  It felt like the space battle scenes in the original Battlestar Galactica series.

When the only good thing you can say about a movie, is that it could have been worse...there is a problem.  I did not enjoy this movie, and am grateful I didn't spend money on it.  Not worth watching.  I give it a 5 / 10.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

How a movie with sex, rape, forcible sodomy, nudity torture, mayhem, violence, dismembered people and animals, drug and alcohol usage, was able to get a R rating instead of NC-17 is beyond me.  Now normally I would say that all these things are a cheap way to drag people into the seats for the shock factor only.  But not so with this movie.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is based upon the first book in the trilogy by Stieg Larrson.  There is already a Swedish version of this film made in 2009.  I’ve not read the books, or seen the original screen adaptation, although it and its sequel have been in my Netflix queue for months.

The story is that of the brilliant hacker Lisbeth Salander, played by Rooney Mara, and journalist Mikael Blomkvist, Daniel Craig, as they work together to try and solve a decades old murder.  While the movie is told with Mikael as the main character, it is Lisbeth who is the real heroine, and total bad ass, to the story.  After being sued for libel and loosing, Mikael is discredited and financially ruined.  He is approached by a billionaire and asked to investigate his family to try and determine who killed his great niece back in the 1960’s. Mikael agrees and hires Lisbeth to assist.  Along the way the pair delves into the entire family’s sordid secrets.

I’m not a huge fan of mysteries because I usually predict the ending within the first half of the movie.  To my pleasant surprise, that was not the case here.  The movie is full of twists, turns and red herrings. At over 2 and a half hours, the movie is very long...however it doesn't feel like it.  The pacing is perfect, and kept me riveted the whole time.  The performances by the main characters, and even the supporting characters, were excellent.  I expect to see several Academy Award nominations for this film.  The beautiful Rooney Mara, has already been nominated for a Golden Globe.  She will be up against competition like Viola Davis (The Help).  I do not think she will win, since she is nude in the movie, and in close competitions, the movie with nudity usually looses; but at least her performance was strong enough that they recognized it despite the nudity.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.  Much like Black Swan, it has a real dark feel to it, but is an exceptional story.  I would highly recommend you see this film, but DO NOT let your children watch it. In fact, I would discourage letting teenagers watch it.  I give it a 9 / 10.

Natural Born Killers: Director's Cut (1994)

First off I want to point out that Quentin Tarantino and Oliver Stone's famous Natural Born Killers had to be edited 5 times to earn its R rating. The version I saw is the director's cut, which would have been NC-17.

I've been told many times that NBK is a film that I needed to see. It has been in my Netflix queue for months. When I saw that it was expiring on January 1, I figured it was time to watch it.

NBK uses a multitude of graphic styles, from black and white, to super saturated, to 50's sitcom, to America's Most Wanted. It is extremely violent and graphic. It tries to be a comedy, a social commentary, an action film and an artistic expression. In the end it just ends up being a jumble.

I can see some merit to the film, such as the transformation of Detective Scagetti from an officer specializing in mass murderers, to a murderer himself. This directly relates to the quote by Neitzsche "Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze
into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." However the social and philosophic commentaries are not enough to overcome the feel that this movie is violence for the sake of violence.

Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis deliver good performances, but every other character is ridiculously stereotyped and one dimensional. Even Robert Downey Jr, and Tommy Lee Jones's characters were so ridiculous that even their acting couldn't save them. Oliver Stone's
directing was unique and carried the film farther than it could have gone. The Mythbusters proved that you can actually polish a turd, but the fact remains...a polished turd is still a turd.

This movie is the epitome of a polished turd. I would advise against wasting your time watching it. It is definitely not something your kids should watch, and definitely deserves a NC-17 rating. I give it a 5/10.