Saturday, March 6th, 2010
Award Season is Crazy Season. If you follow these things at all, you have been bombarded by information about the superiority of one film above another for months now. If you blissfully ignore all that stuff, you might even not have heard that a producer on The Hurt Locker is in trouble for trying to convince Academy voters to vote for his film instead of Avatar. His crime: sending an e-mail to his friends. Yes, things are crazy. So it is a good thing that with the Oscar telecast on Sunday, Award Season will be over. Until May or so, when the first discussions for next year’s favourites and winners will begin once more.
But before the Oscars, the most important of all the meaningless awards, are handed out on Sunday, it is time for my annual Oscar predictions. Last year, I picked 19 of the 24 winners. This year, let’s try to improve on that. But unlike last year, this year I actually feel like I am entitled to my own opinion, having seen 20 of the 58 animated films, 18 of the 38 feature films, and actually having seen all nominated films in three categories. So not only will I now predict the Oscar winners as promised, I will also tell you who should win. (Yes, my opinion constitutes objective truth in these matters.) The following list is ordered rather randomly and incomplete, an alphabetical and complete breakdown of all categories and predictions follows at the end.
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Tags: 2009, 2010, A Matter of Loaf and Death, A Serious Man, A Single Man, Aardman Animations, Ajami, Alessandro Camon, An Education, Anastasia Masaro, Anna Kendrick, Armando Iannucci, Avatar, award season, Bob Peterson, Carey Mulligan, Caroline Smith, Christoph Waltz, Christopher Plummer, Coen Brothers, Colin Firth, Coraline, Crazy Heart, Das Weisse Band, Dave Warren, Disney, District 9, El Secreto de Sus Ojos, english, Ethan Coen, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Faubourg 36, Gabourey Sidibe, Geoffrey Fletcher, George Clooney, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Helen Mirren, Henry Selick, In the Loop, Inglourious Basterds, Instead of Abracadabra, Invictus, James Cameron, Jason Reitman, Jeff Bridges, Jeremy Renner, Jesse Armstrong, Joel Coen, Kathry Bigelow, La teta asustade, Lee Daniels, Logorama, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Marion Cotillard, Mark Boal, Matt Damon, Mauro Fiore, Meryl Streep, Mo'Nique, Morgan Freeman, Movies, Neill Blomkamp, Nick Hornby, Nine, Oren Moverman, Oscar, Paris 36, Penélope Cruz, Pete Doctor, Pixar, Precious, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire, Quentin Tarantino, Randy Newman, Sandra Bullock, Sheldon Turner, Sherlock Holmes, Simon Blackwell, Stanley Tucci, Star Trek, T-Bone Burnett, Terri Tatchell, The Blind Side, The Door, The Hurt Locker, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The Messenger, The Princess and the Frog, The Secret of Kells, The White Ribbon, Tom McCarthy, Tony Roche, Un Prophète, Up, Up in the Air, Vera Farmiga, Wallace & Gromit, Wes Anderson, Woody Harrelson
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Friday, February 5th, 2010
By now, it has been three days since the Nominations for the 2009 Academy Awards, more commonly known as Oscars, have been announced, and everybody has had plenty of time to comment on them, despair over the obvious oversights and dreadful inclusions, and ultimately come to accept them as the meaningless bullshit they are. So now I thought it would be a good idea to voice my opinions on (some of) the nominations, a complete list of which can be found here. My predictions as to who will win will be up in this very space in early March, in time for the, glorious, gloriously ridiculous and ridiculously overlong ceremony on March 7th.
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Tags: A Serious Man, Academy, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, AMPAS, An Education, Avatar, award season, Brokeback Mountain, Carey Mulligan, Christian Berger, Christoph Waltz, Coraline, Crazy Heart, Das Weisse Band, District 9, english, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Helen Mirren, Inglourious Basterds, James Cameron, Jason Reitman, Jeff Bridges, Kathryn Bigelow, Meryl Streep, Mo'Nique, Movies, No Country for Old Men, Oscar, Precious, Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire, Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side, The Hurt Locker, Up, Up in the Air
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Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Review:
Usually, when aliens come to Earth, they need to be fought off. If Will Smith does the fighting, it is helpful, but it is not a necessity. The aliens of District 9, however, have not come to conquer. There spaceship just stopped above Johannesburg, South Africa, and the luckless “prawns”, as they are soon called due to their appearance, are moved to a refugee camp that soon turns into a slum - District 9. Twenty-eight years later, they have outgrown that temporary home and a multinational corporation (called, with as much subtlety as a sledgehammer can muster, Multinational United) is tasked with moving them to a new shelter, far outside the city, which is when things start to go wrong. The film is told as a faux documentary and carried on the shoulders of the lead actor, Sharlto Copley, who nobody had ever heard of before. The special effects, always important in sci-fi films, are impressive for the small budget and the film just manages to throw enough original ideas at the audience to be truly unique, even if many don’t really stick.
Random Observations:
District 9 at the IMDb
I had a heated argument with the friend I saw the film with about whether any of the ideas were really original. I still say they were.
There is one scene - for those that have seen the film: the one after Christopher and Wilkus have broken into MNU and when they are “discovered” by security - that is completely original, accompanied by the perfect music and one of the best single scenes I have seen in a long time. Sadly, the film largely goes into clichés after that.
There are immense plot holes throughout the film, but you shouldn’t be bothered by that. They are necessary for the story to work.
So, those that have seen the film, sequel in 2012?
Tags: 2009, action movie, Andre Odendaal, District 9, Drama, english, Jason Cope, Kenneth Nkosi, Louis Minnaar, Mandla Gaduka, Melt Sieberhagen, minute movie review, mockumentary, movie review, Movies, Nathalie Boltt, Neill Blomkamp, New Zealand Film, Nick Blake, Nick Boraine, Peter Jackson, Robert Hobbs, sci-fi movie, Sharlto Copley, South African Film, Terri Tatchell, Vanessa Haywood, Will Smith
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