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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Sunday, February 7th, 2010
Review:
George Clooney lives in the air - on planes and in airports. 322 days a year, he is on the really high road (sorry for that horrible joke) in his job of professional employment terminator, i.e. he fires people and helps them cope with the situation by painting it in bright colours as a chance for a better life. And he is happy in that life of hotels and airports without any real human connections. Things change when he meets a woman he actually falls for while also encountering the enthusiasm of a young colleague fresh out of college, who invented firing over the internet. He takes her on a trip to learn the ropes while his life of solitude slowly dissolves. The film is often extremely funny while also dealing with a real dramatic problem (being laid off), but ultimately falls a little flat. It’s great fun to watch for the most part, but the end is hardly satisfying and feels disconnected and unreal.
Random Observations:
Up in the Air at the IMDb
This is the sixth of the ten Best Picture Oscar nominees (more about the Oscar nominations here) I’ve seen and I’m still rooting for one I haven’t seen - The Hurt Locker. The film is also nominated for Best Director (Jason Reitman), Best Adapted Screenplay (Reitman and Sheldon Turner), Best Actor (Clooney) and Best Supporting Actress for both Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. Out of those, Clooney’s performance and Reitman’s direction are the most deserving winners, but both are unlike to walk away with the Oscar exactly one month from now.
Because there was an unusually long queue at the ticket counter, I actually missed the first few minutes of the film, something which I absolutely hate, and feel somewhat reluctant about the validity of my critique.
For the most part, the film worked as a realistic tale of human life, but the fact that somebody whose company fires people for other companies thinks that it might be a good idea to do so over video-chat, was too contrived and repeatedly took me out of the movie.
Tags: 2009, American Film, Amy Morton, Anna Kendrick, book adaptation, Chris Lowell, Comedy, Danny McBride, Drama, english, George Clooney, J.K. Simmons, Jason Bateman, Jason Reitman, Melanie Lynskey, minute movie review, movie review, Movies, Oscar, roamnce, Sam Elliott, Sheldon Turner, Steve Eastin, The Hurt Locker, Up in the Air, Vera Farmiga, Zach Galifianakis
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