Oscar Nominations

Penélope Cruz gets a nod for Best Supporting Actress

Nominations for the 81st Academy Awards are out this morning. Here are some of the major categories:

1. Best Picture: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," "Frost/Nixon," "Milk," "The Reader," "Slumdog Millionaire."

2. Actor: Richard Jenkins, "The Visitor"; Frank Langella, "Frost/Nixon"; Sean Penn, "Milk"; Brad Pitt, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"; Mickey Rourke, "The Wrestler."

3. Actress: Anne Hathaway, "Rachel Getting Married"; Angelina Jolie, "Changeling"; Melissa Leo, "Frozen River"; Meryl Streep, "Doubt"; Kate Winslet, "The Reader."

4. Supporting Actor: Josh Brolin, "Milk"; Robert Downey Jr., "Tropic Thunder"; Philip Seymour Hoffman, "Doubt"; Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"; Michael Shannon, "Revolutionary Road."

5. Supporting Actress: Amy Adams, "Doubt"; Penelope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"; Viola Davis, "Doubt"; Taraji P. Henson, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"; Marisa Tomei, "The Wrestler."

6. Director: David Fincher, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"; Ron Howard, "Frost/Nixon"; Gus Van Sant, "Milk"; Stephen Daldry, "The Reader"; Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire."

7. Foreign Film: "The Baader Meinhof Complex," Germany; "The Class," France; "Departures," Japan; "Revanche," Austria; "Waltz With Bashir," Israel.

8. Adapted Screenplay: Eric Roth and Robin Swicord, "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"; John Patrick Shanley, "Doubt"; Peter Morgan, "Frost/Nixon"; David Hare, "The Reader"; Simon Beaufoy, "Slumdog Millionaire."

9. Original Screenplay: Courtney Hunt, "Frozen River"; Mike Leigh, "Happy-Go-Lucky"; Martin McDonagh, "In Bruges"; Dustin Lance Black, "Milk"; Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter, "WALL-E."

10. Animated Feature Film: "Bolt"; "Kung Fu Panda"; "WALL-E."

The big surprise has to be Benjamin Button getting 13 nominations, including Best Actor (Brad Pitt), Best Supporting Actress (Tarajip Henson) and Best Director (David Fincher). I haven't heard anything exceptional about it. Two serious film-going friends both gave it lukewarm reviews.

WALL-E was sadly relegated to the children's table, getting a nomination for Best Animated Feature Film but not Best Picture.

With the exception of Heath Ledger's nod for Best Supporting Actor, The Dark Knight is ignored in the major categories, though it did reap a number of nominations in technical areas like Sound Mixing, Visual Effects, etc.

Cultural Hell: Brad Pitt wins Best Actor and Angelina Jolie wins Best Actress. All media would fuse into one Brangelina channel. You will soon be forced to adopt children from other countries.

Irish playwright and film director Martin McDonagh received a nomination for Best Original Screenplay for In Bruges, but that was it for one of my favorite films in a long time.

How about Robert Downey Jr. getting a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Tropic Thunder?

The most interesting competition this year has to be Best Actor: Frank Langella, Sean Penn and Mickey Rourke have all received tremendous praise for their roles.

Clint and Gran Torino get shut out.

I haven't seen any of the Best Picture nominees. We tried to go see Frost/Nixon on Monday, but it wasn't showing anywhere nearby.

I'd be curious to hear everyone's thoughts on the nominations. What caught your attention?

Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards

WALL-E was named Best Picture of the Year by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association yesterday, the first time in LAFCA's 33-year history that an animated film won the top prize.

Along with The Golden Globes, the LAFCA awards are supposed to be a harbinger of possible Oscar nods.

Except they haven't picked the eventual Academy Award winner for Best Picture since 1993 (Schindler's List.) So I'm not sure this is good news for WALL-E.

The Runner-Up was The Dark Knight.

Interesting to compare LAFCA's top two picks this year with those from 2007: There Will Be Blood and Runner-up The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. But 2008 has had a fantastical element, hasn't it?

It will be interesting to see how the Academy handles WALL-E. Will it receive an Oscar nomination for Best Picture? Or will it be relegated to Best Animated Feature?

I haven't seen a lot of films in 2008, so I'm not a good judge, but this is the first time I've ever felt like an animated film deserved a nomination for Best Picture.

Here are LAFCA winners in other major categories:

DIRECTOR: Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Runner-up: Christopher Nolan, "The Dark Knight”

ACTRESS: Sally Hawkins, "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Runner-up: Melissa Leo, “Frozen River”

ACTOR: Sean Penn, “Milk”
Runner-up: Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Penélope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" and "Elegy"
Runner-up: Viola Davis, "Doubt"

SUPPORTING ACTOR: Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"
Runner-up: Eddie Marsan, "Happy-Go-Lucky"

SCREENPLAY: Mike Leigh, "Happy-Go-Lucky"
Runner-up: Charlie Kaufman, "Synecdoche, New York"

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: "Still Life“ directed by Jia Zhangke
Runner-up: "The Class" directed by Laurent Cantet

Full list of 2008 LAFCA awards.

And credit to the LAFCA: This year's award ceremony - their 34th - is dedicated to Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira "for his extraordinary contribution to the cinema as he enters his 100th year."

Oscars Night

So . . . Did the right films win? Did the right actors win? More importantly, who was the most beautiful/handsome?

Here are the results of the evening.

Interesting that all four acting awards went to non-American actors. Wonder if that's a first?

IMDB picks its favorite moments from the ceremony. If you're registered there, you can vote in the poll.

Favorite moment from last night's Academy Awards?

	Votes
Jon Stewart's classy move to bring out Once's Markéta Irglová to give her acceptance speech	2205	(26.3%)
Marion Cotillard named Best Actress!	789	(9.4%)
Jon Stewart's excellent opening monologue and solid performance throughout the entire show	785	(9.4%)
Hey! Jon Stewart gave a shout-out to the IMDb! Woohoo!	693	(8.3%)
Javier Bardem's elegant, bilingual acceptance speech	538	(6.4%)
Daniel Day-Lewis being "knighted" by Helen Mirren	474	(5.7%)
Judi Dench & Halle Berry = Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill	471	(5.6%)
The Coens, the Coens, the Coens....	455	(5.4%)
Tilda Swinton calling out George Clooney on his Batman costume	424	(5.1%)
Another Oscar moment entirely	282	(3.4%)
Amy Adams being sent out solo to perform "Happy Working Song"	154	(1.8%)
Owen Wilson as presenter - welcome back, Butterscotch Stallion!	150	(1.8%)
The official Oscar salutes to "Binoculars and Periscopes" and "Bad Dreams"	142	(1.7%)
How many people slipped on their way to the podium?!	142	(1.7%)
The Rock -- I mean, Dwayne Johnson -- as presenter?	132	(1.6%)
Michael Bay is a member of the Academy's Director branch?!	117	(1.4%)
Diablo Cody rocking her Betty Rubble dress -- and inadvertently brushing off Harrison Ford	113	(1.3%)
Hey - were most of those acceptance speeches really short?!	95	(1.1%)
Sexy Kristen Chenoweth taking over the Kodak Theater with "That's How You Know"	77	(0.9%)
Taxi to the Dark Side winning Best Documentary over Sicko and No End in Sight	42	(0.5%)
Jessica Alba channeling Drew Barrymore	39	(0.5%)
No Country for Old Men producer Scott Rudin not throwing his Oscar at his assistant	34	(0.4%)
Elizabeth: The Golden Age winning for Costume Design	22	(0.3%)

A few other great moments:

1) Jon Stewart: "Oscar is 80 this year, which makes him now automatically the frontrunner for the Republican nomination."
2) Helen Mirren's presentation of the Best Actor Award. "Ambition, amorality, greed, deviousness, usury, venality, remorse, nobility, generosity, decency and good old fashioned cojones. I know these sound like the description to be a successful studio head, but these are facets of the performances of our leading actor nominees."
3) Robert Boyle winning an honorary Oscar. The annual "Will the old guy/gal get through this without rambling on or getting confused?" moment was its usual edge-of-your-seat-thriller. But Boyle handled it very gracefully.
4) Clips of past presenters and winning moments.

Not-so-great Moments:

1) Those awful songs from Enchanted. THREE?!?!?!?
2) Tom Hank's bad haircut.
3) Colin Farrell's bad non-haircut.
4) The dull opening sequence inspired by . . . Cars, a mediocre animated film from two years ago. I was hoping for a sequel to George Clooney appearing in bed with Jon Stewart.
5) The tribute to 80 years of Oscars. The entire history of cinema at your disposal, and all we got was that lame exercise? At least they showed Fred Astaire for .76 seconds.

As far as most beautiful, La Reina went on and on about Nicole Kidman's amazing necklace and dress, and how great she looked being slightly pregnant. I won't argue.

But I stuck with my more traditional choice: Penélope Cruz.

And we both thought Helen Mirren looked fantastic.

Considering the lack of time to prepare, I thought the show went fairly well. Not the most exciting, perhaps, but at least it was shorter than usual!

UPDATE: In 1964, at the 37th Academy Awards, all four acting awards went to non-American actors:

Best Actor: Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady
Best Actress: Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins
Best Supporting Actor: Peter Ustinov in Topkapi
Best Supporting Actress: Lila Kedrova in Zorba the Greek