It is now entirely possible that, for the first time since the inception of the Oscars, fully FIVE FILMS could stand for Best Animated Feature.
There have never been this many eligible nominees, thus it’s entirely possible that the field could be expanded to be commensurate with the availability of entrants.
Folks, the field is positively MAMMOTH. There are fully twenty eligible films. I’ve seen several of them, and heard of most of the rest. There are some really obscure pieces there, and worse, there are some that never should have been nominated to begin with. For instance, Up, Coraline and Astro Boy are on the list, and those are indeed sweet titles. We reviewed them right here.
But Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel? That’s just an insult. And surely we can all do better than “Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure”. Wasn’t that direct to video? Or did it actually play in L.A. for a while?
Still though, a great big field goes into play soon–good luck to the nominees, whoever they may be.
As long as it’s not Alvin and the Chipmunks.
There’s absolutely no chance that Michael Jackson’s final movie This Is It will win an Oscar for Best Documentary.
I’m sorry, but that’s just the case. It was released too late in the year to be considered–at least this year. But it’s not too late, however, for it to take other honors. It could easily take the Academy Award for Best Picture, even if it has some pretty stiff competition in that department.
Most years, Academy Award for Best Picture is seldom a foregone conclusion even at the best of times. But let’s face it…this is a wholly different animal. This is a movie about the last concert ever that never actually happened but was in the process of doing so of one of the biggest entertainers of the twentieth century.
That and the Best Picture slate has been recently expanded to TEN competitors rather than five, so there’s some extra room on the field, a slot that This Is It could easily find itself in.
Can This Is It win? Well, that’s not clear. Especially since NONE of the slots have been filled yet. But is there every possibility? I’d say yes.
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I’m not sure, exactly, why the folks behind G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra felt the need to keep this one out of the critics’ hands. You’ll find out why in just a second.
First, the plot. Someone apparently took the Patriot Act WAY too far and built a clandestine team of highly-powered and extraordinarily well-equipped soldiers from around the world (I don’t even want to think about how much international law THAT maneuver breaks). And frankly, it’s a good thing they did, because they find themselves facing a nearly-equally highly-powered and well-equipped force of terrorists / mercenaries / general bad guys. There’s a lot more than that going on in here, but suffice it all to say that the plot can basically be reduced to “G.I. Joe is going to fight Cobra, much like it did back in your childhood”. Though don’t expect this to look too much like your childhood–they have, of course, dispensed with canon. Which kind of sucks–I WISH they’d kept Cobra Commander as a former used-car dealer turned mercenary.
Let’s be clear–this is NOT an Oscar contender. This is Short Attention Span Theatre at its absolute zenith. I didn’t think to bring a stopwatch with me but something or someone will get shot / blown up / stabbed / sliced / run over with alarming frequency. The movie is essentially one long fight scene occasionally broken up by dialogue. Sometimes the two will even overlap, causing a kind of plot development and backstory.
In the strictest sense, this really isn’t that great a movie. It has precious little story to it, and doesn’t really challenge the viewer in any way. This may well be why no one wanted critics there–so that they couldn’t go on any diatribes (like this) about how the film community is basically out to turn the world, in a truly Cobra Commander style plot (double bonus irony points! Woo hoo!). into a legion of mindless sheep by feeding them a steady diet of crap.
Basically, they could’ve titled this movie “Violence!” and no one would’ve noticed a difference, nor likely cared.
But that was the point. This is just a fun movie, something you go see for an adrenaline rush and to watch hot chicks fight and see stuff blow up on a regular basis. It’s quite possibly the new gold standard of “popcorn movie”. This movie might well appear in a dictionary entry next to the phrase “aggressive mediocrity”.
Thus, the Screenhead Ten Scale awards it a seven out of ten for doing EXACTLY what it set out to do and nothing more. In the grander sense, it’s a C-student–make no mistake about that–but it’s definitely the BEST C-student ever. There’s nothing wrong with this movie–but there’s not as much right as there could have been, either.
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This one’s for you, Heath. Rest in peace.
For those of you who haven’t heard yet, Heath Ledger did take home the posthumous Oscar for Best Actor for his handling of his last role, The Joker in The Dark Knight.
Thus, I’m going to tackle that movie today, just so you all know how good this one was.
Seriously, if you haven’t seen it yet, I don’t know what’s stopping you. It’s entirely too good to pass up on. Basically, we’re still in Gotham City, with Harvey Dent on his meteoric rise to power, The Joker out to take his place as Gotham’s Clown Prince of Crime, and the Batman out to settle everybody’s hash who even so much as considers returning a library book late. Indeed, the Joker’s convinced that Gotham deserves a better class of criminal, and he’s out to provide it, starting from the very beginning in an extremely well-orchestrated bank robbery scene. The rest of the movie is the Joker’s mad attempt to do…well…something (if Alfred is to be believed he’s just one of those guys who wants to watch the world burn) and the Batman’s almost equally mad attempt to stop him.
I have to hand it to The Dark Knight almost immediately. This movie is unbelievable. It is, easily, the best Batman installment I’ve ever seen. Yes, after Batman Returns the whole franchise started a slow collapse into sludgy campdom, but Batman Begins gave it a whole new life. It elevated the series from bad comic book to true action movie. And The Dark Knight is the result of that new life. It’s produced the best Batman (Christian Bale) and a whole lot of other bests, too…including the best Joker.
Say what you will about Jack Nicholson. I’m not going to fault Jack. But the plain and simple is, Jack WAS the best Joker. WAS…until Ledger just destroyed it. The first time I saw Ledger’s Joker do the Pencil Trick I just LOST IT. My jaw actually dropped. I mean literally and actually FELL OPEN. I’m glad I wasn’t drinking a Coke at the time or it would’ve wound up all down the front of my shirt. It was crazy.
When you’ve got the best Batman, the best Joker, the best script–a script so tautly plotted and packed with clever twists that it’s ALMOST difficult to follow, but only almost–you’ve got no choice but to call it the best in the series. It brings together so many quality, powerful, disparate elements that make it sheer lunacy on a whole-wheat bun. And it’s not just the choice performances turned in by the leads, either. It’s amazing, the kinds of great acting jobs were brought to this. The set design, the prop design, the music…it’s amazing. Watching the Batman hangglide around in the middle of Singapore was just eye-popping.
At this point I must sound like a fanboy raving ceaselessly, but in all honesty, I have no choice but to. I enjoyed this movie too much to say anything less. I’m even having difficulty trying to pick out downsides, because I just outright enjoyed this. Were there problems? I can’t mention any, really. If there were they were so small they just coasted on by while I stared goggle-eyed at the impressive proceedings going on in front of me.
If you have even a vague enjoyment for action movies, if you love a dramatic touch, if you like an occasional comic book, then you must–MUST–see this movie. It’s just too much fun to pass up.
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Buzz has been circulating ever since The Dark Knight hit theaters that Heath Ledger had a pretty damn good chance at winning an Oscar for best supporting actor. But due to his tragic death last year due to an accidental prescription drug overdose, who would recieve the award?
Well, his family will be on hand to actually recieve the award, if he wins it, but the Oscar would then be passed on to 3-year old Matilda Ledger, Heath’s daughter.
I don’t know about you guys but I think Heath Ledger definitly deserves this Oscar, his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight was absolutely amazing and I think it’s a damn shame such a good actor had to die a premature death.
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