Kinematoscope

Dave and I decided to come up with our own Oscar nominations (after some oversights in the real-life Oscar nominations). We conform to the bylaws of the Academy, but reduce the voting block to one, essentially. Again, we’re not picking foreign language, documentary, or the three shorts owing to barely seeing any. I decided to make it even more fun by limiting myself to the 60 eligible 2008 films that I’ve seen to date. Here’s what I came up with. My picks are kind of oddball this year- I’m like the Manohla Dargis of blogs that nobody reads.

Best Sound Mixing:

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
Rachel Getting Married

As I understand it, Sound Mixing is about balancing the finished soundtrack of a film- music, dialogue, and effects. Rachel Getting Married tracked a vivid, organic, and music filled atmosphere almost like a documentary. Button and The Dark Knight had epic scopes to deal with, Wall-E was an amazing expansion of Ben Burtt’s R2D2 routine into full-fledged adorable robot language, and Slumdog really knew when to crank up the soundtrack.

Best Sound Editing:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Cloverfield
Wall-E
Iron Man

Editing, meanwhile, is for the creation of specific effects (again, as far I can tell), so I’d give it to Button’s shrieking tugboats and so forth, The Dark Knight’s various explosions and crashes, the innovative nature of Cloverfield’s sound effects (the monster was mostly scary because of off-screen noises), Wall-E’s rocket launches, and Iron Man’s armored-suit vs. fighter jet chicanery.

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Best Special Effects:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Fall

Button’s digital mapping is the next evolution of Gollum and was nearly seamless. Hell, if it wasn’t Brad Pitt’s ubiquitous face they were altering, I wouldn’t even have thought about the achievement of it as I was watching. TDK gets props for flipping trucks without CGI, and the mixture of CGI, setpieces, and one bravura claymation dream sequence really set apart The Fall for me.

Quick note here: Dave and I did agree before that we were going to choose our nominees from the Academy finalists, which didn’t include The Fall in the round of fifteen or seven… but I just love The Fall so much. So sue me.

Best Make Up:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Hellboy II: The Golden Army

This is the only category I actually predicted correctly! Woo! Again, old person makeup, scary clown makeup, and crazy monster makeup. Variety is fun.

Best Art Direction:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Fall
Be Kind Rewind
Wall-E

I don’t understand why Wall-E can’t qualify for best art direction when it transports us to entire worlds that had to be invented, not just planned out. Button and TDK are pretty complete visions, The Fall is inventive artistry at its best, and Be Kind Rewind I think is just as complete in set design and production design as anything else- it’s just that they created a charmingly rundown Jersey town, not a fantastical world. But Gondry’s home-video aesthetic doesn’t happen on its own, people.

Best Costume Design:

The Dark Knight
The Fall
Revolutionary Road
The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button
Appaloosa

Maybe it’s me, but I’m more inclined to take the name of the award literally and look for Costumes that were designed, as in, the fantastic, rather than recreated to match earlier time periods, hence The Dark Knight and The Fall. But those were the only non-period films I could think of. So I went with Revolutionary Road for blending the costumes in with the lighting scheme, nearly, Button for having to costume multiple time periods instead of just one, and Appaloosa mostly for Viggo Mortensen’s scarves.

Best Animated Feature:

Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E
(Something Else)

I only saw two animated movies this year. It was a slow year for CGI, relatively. Really this should just be three nominations for Wall-E, though. It’s that good.

Best Song:

“Down to Earth” – Wall-E
“Another Way To Die” – Quantum Of Solace
“Little Person” – Synecdoche, New York
“The Little Things” – Wanted
“O Saya” – Slumdog Millionaire

As much as I loved “Dracula’s Lament,” it was sixth behind the above five. The Oscars would never be cool enough to nominate songs from Wanted and the new Bond movie, but damn if they don’t make me feel like a badass when they pop up on my iPod. “Down To Earth” is a great addition to the Pixar credit-song gauntlet, “O Saya” starts Slumdog off with a bang bigger than the film turns out to be worth, and “Little Person” encapsulates Charlie Kaufman’s bittersweet world better than his mess of a directorial debut even began to.

Best Score:

Carter Burwell- In Bruges
Krishna Levy- The Fall
Thomas Newman – Revolutionary Road
Thomas Newman – Wall-E
Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard – The Dark Knight

I’m not a score guy. Dave’s got a billion of them, I probably have a dozen, total. But they do sometimes leave an impression- my hands down favorite this year has to be Carter Burwell’s elegant, somber score for the tragicomedy In Bruges. A close second is TDK’s creepy build into madness, from the opening low extended violin warble to the billowing note of the title screen at the end.

I enjoyed Levy’s chiming, sweeping score to The Fall (which again, may not be properly eligible because it incorporates part of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony as a theme, but my heart would break, sorry), which takes as many turns as the story, as well as Thomas Newman’s work on both Wall-E (playful) and Revolutionary Road (somber): Newman is an absolute master at emphasizing moments in films with subtle touches instead of cliché musical swells, the American Beauty score being a prime example.

Best Editing:

Lee Smith – The Dark Knight
Robert Duffy- The Fall
Stephen Schaffer- Wall-E
Jon Gregory- In Bruges
Chris Dickens- Slumdog Millionaire

This category, I think even more than director, has a lot to do with Best Picture. How well put together a film is says a lot about how good it is. The Dark Knight lagged in the third act, but not as much as Button lagged in the entire second half, so it makes it while Button doesn’t. The Fall (unlike Button) used its framing device to perfection, though that’s sort of the point, and came in at a taught 117 minutes while still feeling epic to me. Wall-E I still say deserves a nomination when every shot, sequence, and transition has to be planned in advance. That doesn’t leave an editor much wiggle room. In Bruges expertly dealt out key flashbacks at just the right moments, and maintained a dramatic, three act structure like a play (to an effect I found much greater than two lauded films adapted from actual plays this year). And finally, Slumdog Millionaire is a well-paced and frenetic adventure- it doesn’t leave anyone enough time to scoff at it until it’s over.

Best Cinematography:

Roger Deakins – Revolutionary Road
Claudio Miranda – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Wally Pfister – The Dark Knight
Harris Savides – Milk
Colin Watkinson- The Fall

One of my favorite categories to consider. Deakins played expertly with framing and light in Road (much better than he just centered stuff in the camera in The Reader, which he apparently needed some other dude’s help for... That was probably too harsh.). Miranda and Pfister moved effortlessly through all sorts of settings to maintain the particular visions of the auteurs they work for. Milk was a light and dreamy film that subtly worked into a grim subject, with some innovative shots, the more I watch it. And can you tell I’m really a big fan of this “The Fall” that came to Milwaukee in April and no one else has ever heard of? Can you?

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Christopher Nolan, Johnathan Nolan, and David Goyer – The Dark Knight
Dan Gilroy, Nico Soultanakis, and Tarsem- The Fall
John Lindvqist- Let The Right One In
Fergus/Ostby/Marcum/Holloway- Iron Man
Eric Roth and Robin Swicord- The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

I feel like Goyer just wrote the part in TDK where Batman dramatically lands on top of a van in a parking structure, then put his feet up and let the Nolans do their thing. The Fall is apparently based on the screenplay for a 1981 film called Yo Ho Ho (?), so I’ll put it here. Because it’s awesome. I had to find somewhere to honor Let The Right One In, which is brilliant mostly for the nature of Lindqvist’s adaptation of his own novel. Four dudes I’ve never heard of made a taught, entertaining two hours out of Iron Man’s mess of a back story, and finally I’ll begrudgingly give the last spot to Button, even though it has some major problems and should really be listed as “based on the Forrest Gump screenplay.”

Best Original Screenplay:

Dustin Lance Black - Milk
Jennifer Lumet – Rachel Getting Married
Martin McDonagh – In Bruges
Robert Siegel – The Wrestler
Andrew Stanton, Peter Docter, and Jim Reardon – Wall-E

I’m gonna go with Dave on this one, for all five. Milk makes city district board politics as compelling, in a way, as the central gay rights struggle. Rachel Getting Married finds time to create an entire family of three dimensional people. In Bruges is at once complex and precisely simple (and foul-mouthed, and hilarious). The Wrestler is impressive both as a script and as a role written to bring the best out of Mickey Rourke, of all people. And Wall-E is a triumph of imagination pushing the limits of the CGI medium, as Pixar always does.

Best Supporting Actress:

Amy Adams – Doubt
Marisa Tomei – The Wrestler
Rosmarie Dewitt- Rachel Getting Married
Debra Winger- Rachel Getting Married
Penelope Cruz- Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Not the strongest year for this category- I wasn’t really that sure about including Cruz (she mostly yells in Spanish for a while) until I couldn’t find anyone I like more for the fifth spot. I prefer Adams’ doe-eyed character in Doubt to Viola Davis, since naiveté is harder to sell than scenery chewing for about ten minutes. Tomei is a solid second fiddle in The Wrestler, with a parallel faded glory all her own. And Dewitt and Winger really make Rachel Getting Married one of the strongest ensembles of the year.

Best Supporting Actor:

Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight
Ralph Fiennes- In Bruges
Bill Irwin- Rachel Getting Married
Michael Shannon- Revolutionary Road
Phillip Seymour Hoffman- Doubt

Heath Ledger, all the way. But we need four people to smile politely for drama’s sake, so I say Fiennes’ f-bomb-dropping, cockney crime lord, Irwin’s quietly desperate father, Shannon’s truth-to-power headcase, and Hoffman’s seemingly scrupulous priest can smile and nod right before they lose out.

Best Actress:

Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Kate Winlset – Revolutionary Road
Julianne Moore- Blindness
Michelle Williams- Wendy And Lucy
Rebecca Hall- Vicky Cristina Barcelona

I’m fully behind Hathaway’s first nomination, but the rest of the category didn’t sit right with me (Meryl Streep can scowl? That’s news?). I’d rather see Winslet win for her range and expression in Revolutionary Road, instead of the “I’ll look conflicted and you can let the Holocaust do the rest” grimacing in The Reader (I have many, many mixed emotions about that film. This will be its own post soon.) Overlooked in the mixed reception for Blindness was Moore’s strong turn as the film’s emotional center, den mother to a blind race. Williams broke out in Wendy and Lucy, but it was unfortunately only to a handful of theaters. And Rebecca Hall keeps Woody Allen’s travelogue comedy from falling apart with a sort of feminine spin on the Allen neurosis archetype (plus I might be in love with her. She was an unsung hero of The Prestige, and she looks kind of like a British Dick Van Dyke Show era Mary Tyler Moore. Sigh.).

Best Actor:

Colin Farrell – In Bruges
Sean Penn – Milk
Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler
Chiwetel Ejiofor- Redbelt
Lee Pace – The Fall

I certainly can’t argue with the twin Rourke/Penn juggernauts that are taking all the awards (or decide between them for predicting purposes, for that matter). And Farrell deserves more than just a B-level Golden Globe for his role. I nearly forgot about Ejiofor in Redbelt, a perfect melding of the actor’s zen sensibility, the teachings of Jiu-Jitsu, and David Mamet’s brand of dialogue. And you don’t realize how reserved Lee Pace in The Fall is until a big moment at the very end.

Best Director:

Darren Arnofsky – The Wrestler
David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Christopher Nolan – The Dark Knight
Tarsem- The Fall
Ben Stiller- Tropic Thunder

Before you laugh, think about Tropic Thunder for a minute. Think about the cast, crew, stunts, explosions, effects, and overall scope of that film. For a comedy, it’s pretty epically done, and I can’t think a better place to recognize it than by clearing a spot for Ben Stiller- just don’t meet any more parents, and we’ll be fine. Tarsem is a visionary director that really struck a chord with The Fall (with me, anyway), though I half-expect his next film to be insufferable. Does that make sense? The rest are three directors so dear to my heart I can hardly believer they would all be (and Fincher is, of course) first time nominees: Fincher, Nolan, and Arnofsky.

Best Picture:

The Dark Knight
Wall-E
The Fall
In Bruges
Rachel Getting Married

As you can see, I was perhaps a bit bitter when The Dark Knight was overlooked for Best Picture this year, after winning so much guild and press acclaim. In Bruges at least snuck into original screenplay, but it deserves so much more as well. The Fall is a film with mixed reviews that isn’t exactly loved by all (61% on RottenTomatoes, although that’s higher than a certain Holocaust-related movie I know of), but clearly I fell for. Rachel Getting Married I thought was more complete of a vision than people realized, and Wall-E is of course, the film that all ages can appreciate with a timeless message.

I didn’t expect my five nominees to be completely different from the Academy’s, but there you go- the more I looked at them (and I have rewatched The Fall more than once, almost to confirm I like it this much), the more I realized those five didn’t speak to me as memorable or as imaginative as others. Button was the closest call, but we don’t have room to honor everyone in the meaningless Oscars in my head, sorry.

Totals:

The Dark Knight – 13
The Fall- 10
Wall-E – 9
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 9
Rachel Getting Married – 7
In Bruges – 6
Revolutionary Road – 5
The Wrestler – 4
Milk – 3
Slumdog Millionaire – 3
Vicky Christina Barcelona – 2
Doubt – 2
Iron Man – 2
Quantum of Solace – 1
Wanted – 1
Hellboy II: The Golden Army – 1
Kung Fu Panda – 1
Cloverfield -1
Be Kind Rewind- 1
Appaloosa- 1
Synecdoche, New York- 1
Let The Right One In- 1
Tropic Thunder- 1
Wendy And Lucy- 1
Blindness- 1
Redbelt- 1
Some Other Animated Film I Didn’t See- 1

Today, dear readers, we will decide what the Oscar nominations should have been. Who says 6,000 minds are better than one? First up, the 2008 Oscar Nominations Dave would've liked to see.

We decided to stick to official Academy eligibility rules, and we have no basis to predict the three short films, best documentary, or best foreign language. But the other nineteen are right in our wheelhouse.

Best Sound:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Quantum of Solace
Wall-E
Wanted

LOUD NOISES!

Best Sound Editing:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Quantum of Solace
Wall-E
Wanted

I DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’RE YELLING ABOUT!

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Best Special Effects:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man

The Dark Knight gets rewarded for it’s amazing practical effects, while Iron Man gets nominated for its clean and crisp CGI designs. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button gets the last spot because of the digital wizardry incorporated on Brad Pitt.

Best Make Up:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Hellboy II: The Golden Army

I would call this a category of obvious choices.

Best Art Direction:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Milk
The Reader
Revolutionary Road

Movies that catch my attention here usually have something very unique to them or they have a grand scale. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Milk, and Revolutionary Road fall into the grand scale idea for me. The Dark Knight’s new Batcave and The Reader’s apartments and prison cell are the unique ones here.

Best Costume Design:

Australia
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road

Decadence (Australia, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Duchess, and Revolutionary Road) rules this category, but I also have to give credit for ingenuity (The Dark Knight).

Best Animated Feature:

Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E

Thanks for playing, Bolt and Kung Fu Panda.

Best Song:

“Down to Earth” – Wall-E
“Dracula’s Lament” – Forgetting Sarah Marshall
“Gran Torino” – Gran Torino
“Jai Ho” – Slumdog Millionaire
“The Wrestler” – The Wrestler

“Down to Earth” and “Jai Ho” are the perennial favorites. How did Springsteen’s “The Wrestler” not secure a nomination? I have not a single clue in the world. “Gran Torino”’s appearance is primarily on pedigree.
If Jason Segel got the chance to perform “Dracula’s Lament” at the Oscars – with puppets to boot – it would be legendary.

Best Score:

Alexandre Desplat – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Nico Muhly – The Reader
Thomas Newman – Revolutionary Road
Thomas Newman – Wall-E
Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard – The Dark Knight

Desplat’s simple, haunting score echoes throughout the film and is readily accessible listening to it separately. Newman gets rewarded twice for his efforts this year because they were both touching and eloquent.

Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard are rewarded for this brash, innovative score that helps set the tone for the film.

Nico Muhly is to The Reader this year what Jonny Greenwood was to There Will Be Blood last year. Bold statement? Yes. However, a 28 year old who can compose a score like this, having no previous film experience – like Greenwood – and deliver a heartbreaking score gets credit where credit is due.

Best Editing:

Matt Chesse and Richard Pearson – Quantum of Solace
Elliot Graham - Milk
Claire Simpson – The Reader
Lee Smith – The Dark Knight
Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Again, sometimes the scale of the work – Milk, The Dark Knight, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – get you rewarded. Other times, stellar sequences – like in The Reader and Quantum of Solace – get you just desserts. It also surprises how come more action/suspense movies do not receive nominations here because the editing can be those type of film’s best friend.

Best Cinematography:

Roger Deakins – Revolutionary Road
Roger Deakins and Chris Menges – The Reader
Claudio Miranda – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Wally Pfister – The Dark Knight
Harris Savides - Milk

This category and score are my two favorite technical categories. Is it wrong to say that these seem like obvious choices?

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Simon Beaufoy – Slumdog Millionaire
David Hare – The Reader
Christopher Nolan, Johnathan Nolan, and David “I’m Just Glad to Be Here” Goyer – The Dark Knight
Eric Roth and the Woman Who Wrote Practical Magic – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
John Patrick Shanley – Doubt

Again, this seems like a pretty obvious category to me.

Best Original Screenplay:

Dustin Lance Black - Milk
Jennifer Lumet – Rachel Getting Married
Martin McDonagh – In Bruges
Robert Siegel – The Wrestler
Andrew Stanton, Peter Docter, and Jim Reardon – Wall-E

Frankly, I was surprised that the Academy overlooked Jennifer Lumet’s script because of the pedigree she has and it was, you know, actually a well-written movie highlighted by a great performance. It just seemed out that it was left out.

Black and McDonagh seem like gimmes here because of their well-crafted and touching – yet funny – scripts.

If Andrew Stanton and company were to win they should thank Brad Bird first because I think the level of story that animated movies are presenting these days is fantastic.

Siegel’s tender script was overlooked and I do not fully understand how it could have been. The Wrestler is touching, deft, and it never gets bogged down with melodramatizations or cliches.

Best Supporting Actress:

Penelope Cruz – Vicky Christina Barcelona
Viola Davis – Doubt
Taraji P. Hanson – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei – The Wrestler
Kate Winslet – The Reader

While I am aware that Kate Winlset is currently up for Best Actress for The Reader, I felt that she did deserve the double nomination this year. To remain in accordance with the Academy’s rules of eligibility, she cannot be nominated twice in the same category, which – to me – seems ridiculous. So, that is why Winslet appears here for The Reader.

Marisa Tomei’s nuanced performance in The Wrestler mirrors the fallen glory and times of Mickey Rourke’s fine performance. Taraji P. Hanson does an admirable job as Benjamin Button’s adopted mother, which was also on par with Penelope Cruz’s performance in Vicky Christina Barcelona.

The person that earned her spot her the second most – behind Winslet – is Viola Davis’ confounded mother portrayal in Doubt. I was quite impressed with her performance in the film, while dealing with an obtuse and terrifying subject matter.

Best Supporting Actor:

Ralph Fiennes – In Bruges
Brendan Gleeson – In Bruges
Phillip Seymour Hoffman – Doubt
David Kross – The Reader
Heath Ledger – The Dark Knight

I have to abide by Academy rules and regulations, therefore, I must have five nominees even though this category is a foregone conclusion.

After Ledger though, Hoffman gives the second best supporting performance of the year, which explains his presence.

So, why Fienees and Gleeson? Fiennes’ profanely insane – or insanely profane – performance was probably one of the better comedic performances of the year, more so than Robert Downey Jr.’s turn in Tropic Thunder. Gleeson’s mentoring role had the appropriateness of an awesome dad without being preachy. That subtly gives him the edge over his competition.

David Kross’ distraught performance in The Reader merits a nomination because he holds his own against Kate Winslet’s performance and under the tutelage of HITLER!

Best Actress:

Cate Blanchett – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Anne Hathaway – Rachel Getting Married
Meryl Streep – Doubt
Kristin Scott Thomas – I’ve Loved You So Long
Kate Winlset – Revolutionary Road

Hathaway, Streep, and Winslet are the frontrunners in this category and have been for since award season began. The last two spots here have alternated a bit between Angelina Jolie, Melissa Leo, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Winslet for The Reader.

I give my fourth nomination to Blanchett’s performance in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button because of the second half of the movie. The first half of the film, I found her deplorable, but the second half is where she began to shine for me, making the character respectable and sympathetic through moments of sorrow. I just wish she had declined to be a part of a framing device.

The much forgotten I’ve Loved You So Long gets a nomination for its lead performance. While I have not seen the film, I also have not seen Frozen River or Changeling. I am left with the impression that Thomas’ performance is more moving than the other two’s.

Best Actor:

Leonardo Di Caprio – Revolutionary Road
Clint Eastwood – Gran Torino
Colin Farrell – In Bruges
Sean Penn – Milk
Mickey Rourke – The Wrestler

To me, Penn and Rourke seem like locks for this category. Ultimately, they had the finest performances of the year.

Colin Farrell put on a display and a side of himself that audiences had yet to encounter. He was heartfelt and funny, which surprised me because this was new territory for him. I hope that he stays on this path because he will finally tap into the potential that he demonstrated in Minority Report and Tigerland.

Di Caprio’s venereal performance as a jaded suburbanite in 1950’s America was an excellent counterpoint to Kate Winslet’s idealist.

Finally, Clint Eastwood is becoming like a fine wine. The older he gets, the better his work turns out to be. The plot summary of Gran Torino is rather rudimentary, but Eastwood’s earnest performance suits the film quite well and is probably one of his top three performances.

Best Director:

Darren Arnofsky – The Wrestler
Stephen Daldry – The Reader
David Fincher – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Christopher Nolan – The Dark Knight
Gus Van Sant – Milk

In this category, Arnofsky scores his first nomination for a touching and depressing tale of a wrestler struggling to hold on to the glory days. Arnofsky lets the scenes unfold, but knows when to cut them off before they become too melodramatic or overwrought with cliches.

Stephen Daldry has been nominated for Best Director for every film he has ever made. I did not realize this until last week. His intimate and compelling touch earns him his third nomination in my book.

David Fincher seems to be the most obvious nominee here. He directed an epic film, has a constant track record, has never been nominated, and delivered in every way imaginable on a film that some questioned its ability to even be filmed.

The Dark Knight has Christopher Nolan’s fingerprints all over it. Not only did this much hyped movie meet the hype, it surpassed it. I cannot remember a film in recent memory that had such extraordinary expectations and then proceeded to blow them out of the water like The Dark Knight did.

Van Sant gets my final slot over Sam Mendes for the control and deft handling he displayed in Milk. While Mendes’ job on Revolutionary Road was good, it seemed at times that the actors were given free reign of a scene and he just stood back and admired. While that can also be a sign of a director knowing his actor’s strengths, I think Van Sant did a better job of utilizing those strengths in Milk.

Best Picture:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
In Bruges
The Reader
Wall-E

When the Academy’s nominations came out a few weeks ago, I was certain that The Dark Knight would have its Best Picture nomination. I thought the Academy may overlook Christopher Nolan, but there is no way they can pass us one of the largest box office successes.

And then it happened. No nomination.

I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was there and was perfectly accepting of that. I thought Fincher’s unusual tale of love, heartbreak, and mysticism was a wonderful film. However, seeing two of the most acclaimed movies of the year – The Dark Knight and Wall-E – get overlooked was stunning.

So, on my list, The Dark Knight and Wall-E get their respected dues.

Another film that made my Best Picture nomination section was In Bruges. Martin McDonaugh’s inaugural effort into full-length features was one of the crowning achievements of the year. It was funny, morally complex, and well executed. More over, who knew Colin Farrell could do comedy?

My final spot came down to two movies: The Reader and Milk. I guess what surprised me was that Milk, while a very good movie, was almost too conventional. However, when the real Academy nominations came out, I was holding The Reader responsible for The Dark Knight not getting in. So, I saw The Reader the weekend following nominations and thought, “Well, Kate Winslet does give a fantastic performance, I don’t see how it secured the nomination.” About a week later, I went and saw it again. I found the movie moving in its little moments, complex, and heartbreaking. While the Weinsteins may get ridiculed for their campaign tactics, I think Daldry’s efforts yielded an excellent movie and I am beginning to wonder if Frost/Nixon was the real culprit in getting The Dark Knight booted from the race. Would the four people who saw Frost/Nixon have that much sway? Only time will tell.

Totals:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – 14
The Dark Knight – 13
The Reader – 9
Wall-E – 7
Milk – 6
Revolutionary Road – 6
In Bruges – 5
The Wrestler – 5
Doubt – 4
Quantum of Solace – 3
Gran Torino – 2
Rachel Getting Married – 2
Slumdog Millionaire – 2
Wanted – 2
Australia – 1
Bolt – 1
The Dutchess – 1
Forgetting Sarah Marshall – 1
Hellboy II: The Golden Army – 1
Iron Man – 1
I’ve Loved You So Long – 1
Kung Fu Panda – 1
Vicky Christina Barcelona – 1

And now my own top ten of 2008!



10. Tropic Thunder

As a lover of films and a writer with the aspiration to be involved in the making of them someday, there’s nothing quite so appealing as a movie about a movie being made. I watched all of Singin’ In The Rain the other day on PBS, and not just for tap dancing.

Ben Stiller’s Tropic Thunder is a future cult classic rich in caricatures of all of today’s mass-marketed stars and franchises, and a kickass action film to boot. It takes on multiple targets, and doesn’t worry about offending anyone, refreshingly. Plus, I could watch an entire comedy composed of nothing but fake trailers.

9. The Wrestler

I am officially a Darren Anofsky fan, and not only because I also enjoy playfully flipping my friends the bird on national television. As much as I liked Pi and Requiem For A Dream, I had sort of written him off as a limited visionary with a thing for rapid edits and depressing the hell out of people.

But with the imaginatively original The Fountain and the much more personal The Wrestler, he’s proved as flexible as any modern auteur.

8. Let The Right One In

A brilliant, casually frank blending of a coming of age tale and vampire creeper movie. A future Halloween staple for me.

(see my top 250 entry about it for more)

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7. Milk

I figured, if anyone could do away with the standard rise and fall tropes of the biopicture, it’s Gus Van Sant, and he mostly did. The more I think about Milk, the more I like it as the perfect blend of an accessible story and Van Sant’s art nouveau sensibility. The pace is frenetic enough to keep people interested, but there is, on occasion, an entire shot framed on the reflection of a blood-spattered whistle.



6. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

I really want to like this film enough for the top five, I gotta say. You got epic historical events, great effects, a pretty good love story…

But oh.. modern day framing device. Why? Not only is the cloying, overhanded modern day framing device of Benjamin Button unnecessary in most ways to the story, it solidifies the biggest critique of the film: the story itself is set in a completely racism-free New Orleans, and the framing device follows the travails of two affluent white people DURING HURRICANE KATRINA.

So, sorry, solid effort, but not a timeless classic. Plus the use of the Arcade Fire's "My Body Is A Cage" in a tv spot (above) made me expect a much darker, more extreme tale than I got.

5. Rachel Getting Married

Speaking of race relations, Rachel Getting Married got to traffic in a background composed entirely of upper class, multicultural synergy- basking in the glow of Obama-fever essentially. Though the central interracial couple getting hitched is largely a subplot to the travails of Anne Hathaway’s rehab-addled sister and the rest of the family’s dysfunction, there’s still a huge, musical cast all through the edges of Jonathan Demme’s filmscape, making an entire world for the weekend to unfold in.

It’s not that Rachel Getting Married is exceptionally groundbreaking in dramatic terms, but it’s exceptionally well-realized. It’s an experience, and a memorable one.

4. In Bruges

Another film that could give a rat’s ass about fitting in to one particular genre. It’s a buddy comedy, it’s a Ritchie-esque thriller, it’s a stagy drama. The best work I’ve seen from Colin Farrell, and splendid performances from Brendan Gleason and Ralph Fiennes round out a movie that’s hilarious, tragic, and all around outstanding.

(see my top 250 writeup)

3. Wall-E

Things I already thought were awesome before I saw Wall-E: Robots. Pixar. Showtunes. Space travel. Fred Willard. Love.

Case closed.



2. The Fall

Remember how The Cell looked really cool, but was insufferably self-serious and enjoyed playing Buffalo Bill a bit too much? What if you took all of the director’s visual flair and applied it to a game of competing fairy tales between the guy from Pushing Daisies and an adorable little girl?

It’s essentially a companion piece to The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, in many ways, and it definitely helped fill the Gilliam-sized hole in my heart after Tideland offended everybody to the point of revulsion and The Brothers Grimm out and out sucked.

1. The Dark Knight

Where to start? Everything about The Dark Knight took a leap forward from Batman Begins, a film I already have a poster of.

The score is moody, dark, and epic. The Joker is one of the most quotable, memorable villains ever (full disclosure- I dressed as The Joker for Halloween. Yeah. I can do the voice pretty well, thank you.) The action set pieces are remarkable, the use of IMAX cameras was groundbreaking, the magic trick...

I do, I’ll concede, have problems with everything in the third act of the film- it does too good a job convincing us that the world is truly chaos to have us believe in hope. But a lot of people like the bit with the boats and all, so maybe I’m just a cynical, hipster douchebag.

My theory is that if the film ended two thirds of the way through (right after some stuff blows up, and Alfred burns a note, if you’ve seen it), then it would be a truly grim masterpiece that the Academy couldn’t have found a way to ignore. But then there’s no way it breaks $400 million, because people want a little hope at the end.

As it is, neither the picture, Christopher Nolan, or the screenplay are up for statuettes, but I’m okay with it now, you know why? Because The Dark Knight can be the outcast. It can be the movie the country deserves, but not the movie it wants right now. A silent guardian, a watchful protector of shunned masterpieces. A dark knight.

The following lists my friend Dave's top ten films of last year. The cinematic year extends to the Oscars, so it's not too late for our lists at all. Not at all.



10. Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Too often comedy is overlooked on a critic’s top-ten list. I think comedy that is poignant, good, and actually makes you laugh should be rewarded. Jason Siegel’s script makes you laugh out loud, cringe at the awkward moments, and sympathize with the characters. The work is never over-the-top or taking itself too seriously.

Siegel’s everyman character caught up with a woman who is out of his league is something that is very relatable. I hope that he continues to develop scripts and – I know I am not alone on this – I would pay money to see Dracula as a stage musical with puppets.

9. The Wrestler

When I read the premise of Darren Arnofsky’s The Wrestler I was skeptical. I thought the film sounded like too much of a cliché and the hype around Mickey Rourke was being blown out of portion.

However, this movie ended up being one of the better surprises of the year for me. The clichés are kept to a minimum, Rourke’s performance is superb, Marisa Tomei is still showing the world that her My Cousin Vinny Oscar was no fluke, and Springsteen delivers a fantastic song for the film.

I felt the most overlooked element of this film though was Arnofsky’s direction. He deftly handles the dramatic scenes with the action scenes, while throwing in a few sequences of awkward, heartbreaking comedy. The other aspect of this film that I felt was ignored by the Academy was Robert Siegel’s compelling script about what people do to hold onto any semblance of glory they once had.

More...



8. Milk

Sean Penn’s embodiment of San Francisco politician/trailblazer Harvey Milk was an acute and stirring performance. The praise for James Franco and Josh Brolin are equally deserved in their supporting roles.

Dustin Lance Black’s script is tender and heartfelt with Gus Van Sant steering the ship do a respectable avenue.

I guess the only thing that surprised me about Milk was how conventional the film was. Duncan described the full-length theatrical trailer (above) as being “grand” in scale and I wholly agree with him. However, that audacious nature of the trailer never materialized in the film, which does not make the film a disappointment by any stretch of the imagination, but I was just expecting something a bit more.

7. Revolutionary Road

One of the grimmest movies of the year, yet I found it stirring in the performances that were delivered from Di Caprio, Winslet, and Shannon.

Yates’ tale of the destruction of the Wheeler family in 1950’s America may lack the subtly and subtext the book possessed, but Mendes is comfortable allowing his actors to take control of the scene and script.

Initially, I thought this was Winslet’s better performance – in comparison with The Reader – however, I realized that her performance is strongly tethered to Di Caprio’s converse one. Though the development of the two primary characters is kind of flat, the magic is based in the realism of the characters. People do not necessarily change and lead minute existences.

Even though I laud the performance delivered by Michael Shannon, it detracts from the overall story because his character, although overtly brash, is a more subtle presence in the novel. I know that sly elements of a book cannot be translated to the big screen sometimes, but I felt that Shannon’s character, though fascinating to watch, was a distraction from the plot at points.

6. Iron Man

The most fun at the movies in 2008. Seriously. It was not heavy entertainment, did not require too much of you, and Downey delivers a charismatic performance that was on par with Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow.

5. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I agree with the sentiment that this movie possesses a lot of flaws. I do not like the framing device utilized in the movie. I found that the movie is a bit slow at certain points, but those are my two complaints. Most reviews followed up the flaw statement with the fact the movie was merely “good,” not “great.”

I disagree. I think the movie was great. I think the direction was spot on, the production value is all there on the screen, and the performances from Pitt and Blanchett are excellent.

More over, I think David Fincher deserves a lot of credit for this movie. A movie with a difficult concept, a long script, and an enormous budget that came with enormous expectations was all packaged together by him. Truly a grand effort from Fincher.

I think that when people review the 2009 Academy Awards in ten years and see that Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture, they will be disturbed. I feel that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button will age better than Slumdog and ten years from now the debate between these two films will replace Titanic vs. L. A. Confidential.

4. In Bruges

Best original script of the year. Easily quotable, highly funny, outstandingly executed by the actors. Martin McDonagh’s first full-length feature film was a great debut that should be considered one of the best and most original debuts ever.

The acting between the three leads – Farrell, Fiennes, and Gleeson – is probably the second best triumvirate on screen this year. Who knew Farrell and Fiennes could be so funny?

3. Wall-E

When will the Academy realize that animated movies can be the best movies of the year? I think too often that people want to classify animated films as merely cartoons and the audience of these films are strictly children. However, films like Wall-E transcend those elements and achieve a higher level of recognition and appreciation because the audience is broader.

The silent robots have one of the better love stories of the year, even though they may just make sound effects at one another. It is tenderer and touching to see the dancing and love between two animated, non-carbon-based life forms than some of the other love stories movie studios expected audiences to buy into.

I think Pixar is one of the best run movie studios today and a studio – yes, a studio – has achieved a level that I tend to reserve for individuals. Pixar, whatever they produce, beyond a doubt, beyond seeing a trailer, I will sign up for and see in theatres because I know what they are going to deliver.



2. The Reader

Sometimes a movie is made by its little moments. Something that a viewer may not pick up on a first or second viewing, but after multiple viewings or recalling the film from one’s memory. The Reader is that type of film for me. It was the subtle nuances that are expressed throughout the film that make it morally confounding and utterly heartbreaking.

The initial time I saw this film, I was more than reluctant to accept it as anything beyond Oscar baiting drama. However, after the first viewing, I found Winslet’s performance as an ex-SS officer completing hypnotizing. The callousness, the coarseness, and heartbreak she exudes from scene-to-scene was astounding.

Then I became fascinated by Nico Muhly’s compelling score. I have no other parallel to draw to him except for Jonny Greenwood’s work on There Will Be Blood. For a debut score, Muhly delivered magnificently and I find it to be compulsively listenable. I went out and purchased the soundtrack and cannot stop listening to it.

I saw it again, about a week after I initial saw it and began to pick up smaller, tendered moments. The slight nods characters share with one another. The subtly of a character being abandoned. The duality of character’s actions in relation to one another. The interplay of the editing. Deakins admirable job with the camera.

I was more stunned that the movie became better for me after a second time. Usually, after I see a movie for the second time I start to take a part the nuances of a film, critique performances and elements harsher, degrade any plot holes. The Reader was only one of two films this year that I enjoyed more the second time I saw it than the first time.

1. The Dark Knight

This was the other movie that I enjoyed more the second time I saw it.

Recently, I was thinking about the term “comic book” movie and how it applied to The Dark Knight. The phrase most associated with the film is that it is being regarded as the “best comic book movie ever made.” Do we refer to The Godfather as the “best adaptation of a novel ever?” No. Do we refer to Schindler’s List as the “best Holocaust movie ever?” No. Do we refer to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly as the “best western ever?” No. Why? Because these movies transcend their respective genres to ascend to the heights reserved for the greatest movies ever.

So, why do we feel the need to continue to refer to The Dark Knight as the “best comic book movie ever?” People should just drop it and refer to it as it should be:
One of the best movies ever.

I will single out that line: One of the best movies ever.

I have seen many films over the course of my life, but I have seen only a handful that are executed so well in every aspect of the film that movie leaves you stunned. The Dark Knight was that to me this year.

To put it another way, Duncan and I were discussing how in 2007 there were a lot of fantastic movies. We each easily thought of four or five movies that we could easily give four stars to and have no qualms about it. This year, we could only think of two that would merit four stars from the both of us: Wall-E and The Dark Knight.
Entertainment Weekly should consider doing amendments to their “100 Greatest Oscar Snubs” article and place The Dark Knight on the list.

Go here for the complete list of Oscar nominees. Normally I do a whole number crunch on how many I got right versus how many wrong, but for some reason this year I don't give a rat's ass.

I wonder why? Maybe it's because the only film I saw this year four times got shut out of all the indicators that it was a good film, with the exception of Heath Ledger's "oh but he was too handsome to die so young" nomination.

But The Dark Knight got seven other nominations, you say. Sure it did. But who cares? Effects, sound mixing/editing, cinematography, editing, art direction, and make-up: all great indicators that it was "well-made" as Frank Marshall put it today, but who gives two shits if it's apparently not any good. If it's about comic books, god forbid.

We can't nominate a movie about comic books! Quick, is there something about the Holocaust?

And this is probably going to sound harsh, but fuck the Holocaust. Make some movies about 9/11, make movies about the fucking Indian Ocean Sunami, Darfur, global warming, pandas that won't fuck, AIDS in Africa, the crisis in the Middle East, anything but the Holocaust already. Can we just fucking decide this? By all means, keep making documentaries, let's use concentration camp metaphors in everything, let's compare people to Hitler, but we have to find a different fucking bogeyman to live under our cinematic beds, because god damn they're everywhere and they weren't all decades ago.

So I'm sorry, Acting branch of the Academy, if you looked into modern times and decided to bury yourselves in the past, where everything is clear. Let's give a three years too late apology to the gay community (Milk) even though the only award we're even thinking about giving that film is to Sean Penn for pretending he's gay and (gasp!) kissing a man! (That's gotta be up there with gaining thirty pounds of Oscar weight, right?) Let's give fourteen nominations to the picture in some fairytale Louisiana where race relations are never mentioned (Button), because most of us feel good about that half-black guy we voted for- but that's only one race we don't have to feel guilty about anymore, and we just realized India existed! Is there a flashy, simplisitic, overwrought Dickensian fable we can give Best Picture to (Slumdog Millionaire) in the spirit of white-guilt and overblown worldliness? But only if it reduces an entire nation's history of poverty to a few music videos! Plus, let's give Richard Nixon "the trial he never got" (Frost/Nixon) and congratulate ourselves for being alive at the time and doing nothing, ultimately, and doing even less the last eight years in the face of larger corruption.

And finally, man oh man, let there be a movie with mediocre reviews about the Holocaust (The Reader), because it's been a little while and Israel is doing some things we really would rather not face right now, and we like to know that evil is evil and good is good, although sometimes people just follow orders, but at least it's a story we know. Don't let their be a movie that's popular, explosive, well-fashioned and well-put together that makes us face the fact that the world is in chaos. Don't let there be a film about people in costumes breaking down the walls of movie genres into artistic territory, because we just wouldn't know what to think.

Wow, I got more bitter the more I was writing that. But I'm not editing this post, because nobody reads this and I just don't care.

I'm glad AMPAS, coming off the lowest rated Oscar telecast in ever, decided to find a few ways to make it get even worse. Not only did they ignore the most popular movie of the decade in all the major categories, they even decided to cut down Original Song to just three nominees, two of which went to songs mostly in Indian.

There were a few consolations in the rough here (In Bruges for Original Screenplay, M. I. A. at the Oscars), but they weren't enough to make me care for today. Maybe next week or something. I just wanted TDK to be there- I've resigned myself to a in-no-way-deserved Slumdog Millionaire victory for a couple months now. I just convinced myself it was going to be in.

The nominations from the guilds of the Directors, Writers, Producers, Editors, Art Directors, Sound Mixers, Costumers, and the truckload of critical acclaim might have done their part too. In fact, only the Screen Actor's Guild, by extension a group that overlaps with the acting block of AMPAS, the largest one, didn't really seem to think much of TDK in their awards. So hopefully they can get fucked in their contract negotiation, for all I care. I try not to come down on Hollywood as not caring about the public, but I can't muster the effort today.