Oscar Nomination Thoughts

Oscar Nominations

My predictions: I nailed 'em pretty good. I nailed the top five in Supporting Actress, and all the nominations were in my top seven except for Pedro Almodovar in the Best Director category.

I don't have time right now to go through too in-depth, but here are some highlights:

Best Inclusions:

• Queen Latifah and John C. Reilly for Chicago. I don't think the film deserved the Best Picture nod, and I don't think Zellweger and Zeta-Jones particularly deserved thier nominations, and it surely didn't deserve a screenplay nomination, but Latifah and Reilly I support fully.


• Y Tu Mama Tambien for Best Original Screenplay. This movie is one of my favorites of the year, so it's (minor) recognition is welcome.

Worst Inclusions:

• Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers for Best Picture. Of course, right? But it got no director nomination, no screenplay nomination, and no acting nomination. Meanwhile, Adaptation gets nominations for all three of it's leads and it's screenplay and is robbed of a Best Picture nomination. Chicago was a lot weaker than Adaptation, too, though it has a lot of Miramax power behind it.


• Rene Zellweger for Chicago. She wasn't that good.

Worst Omissions:

• About Schmidt for Best Adapted Screenplay. It was a great screenplay and it's a gross injustice that it was omitted while Chicago was included.


• Adaptation for Best Picture.


• Far From Heaven for Best Picture. I didn't think it would, but I was disappointed that it didn't.


• Dennis Quaid for BEst Supporting Actor for Far From Heaven.

On Chicago:

• Don't get me wrong, I liked the film. It was entertaining. But it wasn't particularly well acted (outside of Latifah and Reilly) and the story wasn't all that spectacular. It's not deserving of the accolades that it's getting. I'd say it's the frontrunner right now for best picture, and that's disappointing to me. But, not matter what wins best picture, it'll be better than Gladiator.

Blah blah blah movies blah blah blah.

If anyone cares, and I doubt they do, I've seen all the non-animated, non-foreign, non-documentay feature films nominated for an Oscar this year. That's a lot of qualifiers. I've seen only two of the six animated films (Spirited Away, Lilo & Stitch) that received nominations, and only one of the five documentary choices (Bowling for Columbine), and only one of the foreign films (The Crimes of Father Amaro).

Speaking of foreign films, I am sorely disappointed that the brilliant City of God was not nominated for best foreign film. It was really great. A bigger misfortune is that Mexico and Spain didn't nominate their best films (Y Tu Mama Tambien and Talk to Her, respectively) because of silly controversies surrounding them (although, oddly, Mexico did nominate a controversial movie that was much dispised among several Catholic organizations, The Crimes of Father Amaro.)

The First Joey™ Award for 2002

Joey's Worst movies of 2002:

1. Dueces Wild


2. Slackers


3. The Time Machine


4. Blade II


5. xXx / Die Another Day (tie)

Keep in mind that I did see Crossroads.

Andrew Antone, next season's American Idol

In case you don't read airborne1's journal, let me pass on this link:

http://www.andrewantone.com

Discuss.

Movie Review: The Quiet American

Firstly, I suggest you go to the site for A Mighty Wind and watch the trailer for the film. This is the new mockumentary film (opening this spring) from Christopher Guest (This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show) and the trailer is hilarious-looking.

The Quiet American - I'm not a Michael Caine fan, or a Brendan Fraiser fan for that matter, but they both did a great job in this movie. It's based on a Graham Greene novel that I (of course) have not read. It's about the battle between the Communist forces and the French in Vietnam before what eventually became the Vietnam War broke out. It's as much about love as it is about war, as the main characters are in love with the same girl. It was very well done, very well acted, and I enjoyed it a lot. Joey gives The Quiet American three-and-a-half stars out of four and recommends it to people who like character-driven movies.

I'm thinking of giving up the four-star system and moving to a ten-point system. I will advise as necessary.