Oscar 2007 – 2008: Final Academy Award Nomination Predictions
I’m taking a few risks with these predictions, namely being a complete Atonement shut out. Ten years ago, I don’t think I would have said the same thing, but the Academy landscape has changed since then. Best Picture Michael Clayton Juno Into the Wild The Diving Bell and the Butterfly No Country For Old Men Alt: There Will Be Blood Conventional wisdom would have There Will Be Blood in the final 5, but with so many Paramount Vantage films in the running, it seems like there is bound to be one that doesn’t make the cut. With comparisons to Citizen Kane and other grandiose reviews, is it the final that the Academy doesn’t like because they have to like it? Juno still seems like the most vulnerable, but damn it, money talks and it’s made more than any other...
Read MoreTop 10 Films of 2007
I started watching movies, really watching movies, in 1999, the year considered by most to be the best in recent film history. Judging from the trouble I had compiling my 2007 list, I’d say last year was an even greater achievement than 1999 for filmmaking as a whole. I’ve never seen so many movies in one year, and I’ve never loved so many of them. I’m even skipping the bottom five list I usually put together. (Lucky for you, Next.) What’s the point when there is so much to celebrate? Without further ado, here is TheFilmChair.com’s Top 10 for 2007. 1. No Country for Old Men – Perfect isn’t a word you can ever use in describing a human creation. I’m sure the Coen’s film isn’t technically perfect. But it feels perfect. Every move it makes is calculated, leaving...
Read MoreCritics Choice Awards will have stars (plus, predictions)
Nikki Finke is reporting that tomorrow night’s Critics Choice Awards will have stars. Apparently it’s a non-union show, which means no picket line. It also means that this year the BFCA awards show will finally, FINALLY, get the place it deserves ahead of the HFPA’s Golden Globes. It’s been a more accurate predictor of the Oscars for years and doesn’t do things like nominating Oprah’s movie (The Great Debaters) just to have Oprah show up on Globe night. Anyway, here’s how I see the night going down. Best Picture: Into the Wild (There’s too much love for Into the Wild for me to comfortably predict anything else.) Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood (Though, they did give him the acting award for his last role.) Best Actress: Julie Christie, Away From Her (But this is the most...
Read MoreHoliday Recap: Juno, Charlie Wilson’s War, I Am Legend, Sweeney Todd
The best Christmas presents I received this year were from Aaron Sorkin and Diablo Cody. From those two screenwriters came two screenplays. From the screenplays came two of the year’s smartest, most entertaining films. Charlie Wilson’s War, a film about a Texas congressman who decides to wage a covert war against the Soviets by supplying the Afghans with weapons in 1980, is a lesson in geopolitics, probably a 400-level class. It’s not nearly as inspiring as either The American President or The West Wing, but Sorkin here has created three of the best characters he’s ever written. In the hands of Julia Roberts, Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Tom Hanks (as Charlie Wilson), Charlie Wilson’s War is an ensemble comedy so smart and so fast you’d swear it came out in the 1930s. Juno is not a 1930s comedy, though....
Read MoreNicole Kidman – Box Office Poison?
I don’t like Nicole Kidman. It’s nothing personal, I just never really enjoyed watching her strain her way through her art house movie roles. She’s never proved herself to be a superb actress. She’s solid, but hardly extraordinary. And with the measly opening for The Golden Compass ($27 million for this $200+ million fantasy epic), we are again reminded that she is not yet a movie star. Kidman has never had a box office smash, the closest being The Others in 2001 which made $95 million at the North American box office. The film that earned her the Best Actress Oscar, The Hours, only garnered $41 million, which was a smashing success considering the film, but a meager take otherwise. Her other Oscar film, Moulin Rouge!, only made $57 million, though its post-theatrical success may have most people thinking...
Read MoreOn Iraq War Films
Much is being made of the box office failures that have been the so-called Iraq War films. Paul Haggis’s In the Valley of Elah, Reese Witherspoon-starrer Rendition and now, Robert Redford’s star-powered Lions for Lambs have all tanked, struggling to attain anything they could call respectable box office tallies. Politics aside, these weren’t good films in the first place (though I can’t speak to Rendition, which I avoided, but does have a lousy 55/100 on MetaCritic.com). There’s a broader cultural imperative evident in these failures and the successes of other films. Why is American Gangster a big box office hit, and now potential Oscar-contender, while films so overtly in tune with the political landscape continue to flounder? The easy answer is escapism. But as films are a reflection of the culture, we can’t help but pay attention to the...
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