If Hollywood thinks Brokeback Mountain is more interesting and artful than A History of Violence and The New World, and when nobody even notices a piece of rare big screen treasure like Millions… well, they’ve just lost any interest or respect I had for this year’s Oscar event. I’m not even sure host John Stewart will be enough to make me tune in.
BEST PICTURE
Brokeback Mountain – Focus Features
Capote – Sony Pictures Classics
Crash – Lions Gate
Good Night, & Good Luck – WIP
Munich – Universal
RIGHT. I challenge anyone to watch Brokeback Mountain and then watch Millions, The New World, or A History of Violence and then explain to me why BM is the better film.
BEST DIRECTOR
George Clooney – Good Night, And Good Luck
Paul Haggis – Crash
Ang Lee – Brokeback Mountain
Bennett Miller – Capote
Steven Spielberg – Munich
RIGHT. I challenge anyone to explain to me why the directorial efforts of Ang Lee or Bennett Miller are more accomplished than the masterful work done by David Cronenberg (who directed his masterpiece this year), Danny Boyle, or Terrence Malick.
BEST ACTOR
Philip Seymour Hoffman – Capote
Terrence Howard – Hustle & Flow
Heath Ledger – Brokeback Mountain
Joaquin Phoenix – Walk The Line
David Strathairn – Good Night. And, Good Luck
It’s a shame no one noticed the incredible work done by Daniel Day-Lewis in The Ballad of Jack and Rose, or Bruno Ganz in Downfall.
BEST ACTRESS
Judi Dench – Mrs. Henderson Presents
Felicity Huffman – Transamerica
Keira Knightly – Pride & Prejudice
Charlize Theron – North Country
Reese Witherspoon – Walk The Line
WATCH ‘THE NEW WORLD.’ How they could nominate Knightley and not Q’orianka Kilcher… it defies all reason.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Matt Dillon – Crash
George Clooney – Syriana
Paul Giamatti – Cinderella Man
Jake Gyllenhaal – Brokeback Mountain
William Hurt – A History of Violence
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams – Junebug
Catherine Keener – Capote
Frances McDormand – North Country
Rachel Weisz – The Constant Gardener
Michelle Williams – Brokeback Mountain
WHERE IS MARIA BELLO????? Bello’s work in A History of Violence should have won the Oscar. She’s not even nominated.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Match Point – Woody Allen
The Squid & The Whale – Noah Baumbach
Good Night. And, Good Luck – George Clooney, Grant Heslov
Syriana – Stephen Gaghan
Crash – Paul Haggis, Robert Moresco
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Constant Gardener – Jeffrey Caine
Capote – Dan Futterman
Munich – Tony Kushner, Eric Roth
Brokeback Mountain – Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana
A History Of Violence – Josh Olson
If A History of Violence doesn’t win, man…
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Don’t Tell – Italy
Joyeux Noel – France
Paradise Now – Palestine
Sophie Scholl – Germany
Tsotsi – South Africa
Unbelievable. Just… unbelievable. Where’s Cache?
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Darwin’s Nightmare
Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room
March Of The Penguins
Murderball
Street Fight
This category actually looks pretty good. I’m glad they didn’t count Werner Herzog’s films, since they’re not really documentaries, the way he manipulated them.
ANIMATED FILM
Howl’s Moving Casle
The Corpse Bride
Wallace & Gromit
Slam dunk. All deserving. A complete shut-out for the Dreamworks/Disney trash.
ART DIRECTION
Good Night, And Good Luck.
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire
King Kong
Memoirs Of A Geisha
Pride & Prejudice
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Batman Begins
Brokeback Mountain
Good Night, And Good Luck.
Memoirs Of A Geisha
The New World
THE NEW WORLD. If Brokeback Mountain beats The New World here, the Academy has just passed up a masterpice for a postcard of some open ground in Canada.
COSTUME DESIGN
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
Memoirs Of A Geisha
Mrs. Henderson Presents
Pride & Prejudice
Walk The Line
DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
The Death Of Kevin Carter: Casualty Of The Bang Bang Club
God Sleeps In Rwanda
The Mushroom Club
A Note Of Triumph: The Golden Age Of Norman Corwin
FILM EDITING
Cinderella Man
The Constant Gardener
Crash
Munich
Walk The Line
Where’s Sin City?
MAKEUP
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
Cinderella Man
Star Wars: Episode Iii Revenge Of The Sith
MUSIC (SCORE)
Brokeback Mountain
The Constant Gardener
Memoirs Of A Geisha
Munich
Pride & Prejudice
MUSIC (SONG)
“In The Deep” From Crash
“It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp” From Hustle & Flow
“Travelin’ Thru” From Transamerica
SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)
Badgered
The Moon And The Son: An Imagined Conversation
The Mysterious Geographic Explorations Of Jasper Morello
9
One Man Band
SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
Ausreisser (The Runaway)
Cashback
The Last Farm
Our Time Is Up
Six Shooter
SOUND EDITING
King Kong
Memoirs Of A Geisha
War Of The Worlds
SOUND MIXING
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
King Kong
Memoirs Of A Geisha
Walk The Line
War Of The Worlds
VISUAL EFFECTS
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
King Kong
War Of The Worlds
RIGHT. How anyone could say Narnia’s effects were better than those in Revenge of the Sith… it boggles the mind. The opening sequences alone are like the difference between CGI ten years ago and cutting-edge.
Red goes on 1, blue on 2, green on 3…
The funniest thing about these paint-by-number picks is that the Academy thinks that they are actually being daring and risky by nominating Brokeback Mountain and Goodnight and Good Luck so many times.
And why again is Narnia up for visual effects? Did the Academy see a different movie than I did?
The biggest omission is definitely History of Violence for Best Picture, Direction and Actor. Saadly, William Hurt has a snowball’s chance in hell of winning Best Supporting Actor.
I agree… somewhat.
I do like Philip Seymour Hoffman, and although I’m not in love with Capote, I sure hope this year he will be rewarded for all he has done – and deserves for Capote.
Junebug was brilliant, my favorite of the year – so, go Amy Adams!
Also, I’m really excited to see “hard out here for a pimp” nominated for best song. that scene from “Hustle and Flow” is one of the best all time!
It hasn’t come out yet in the Denver area, but I have a friend (who I trust) who has seen “Tsotsi” and highly recommends it. So – maybe I’ll find a movie here to love…
Aside from that, yeah, pretty lame. I might even skip it for the first time in years…
*whistles* I’ve seen some bad nominations in past years but I believe this is the ABSOLUTE worst I’ve come across. Forget all the big categories…foreign film selections really miss the boat.
Well, I guess I’ll be….doing something else at Oscar time this year.
I haven’t seen any of the movies nominated for Best Picture or “The New World” or “a History of Violence” but I think these nominations are intriguing, because Munich is the only big studio movie nominated, all the others are independent or studio dependents. Maybe in this way Hollywood thinks it is being “daring.”
Plus many of the Academy may’ve not of seen “The New World” and may’ve been confused which version of the movie they needed to nominate.
A lot of pre-Oscar season nominations are here, as well. Either “Cinderella Man”, “Crash”, “Hustle and Flow” are good enough to stick in the Academy’s mind or this year’s Oscar season was very lame.
Reese Witherspoon’s name is probably already in the winning envelope.
I’m very very glad to see Terrence Howard get a nom for Hustle & Flow. It was the best performance I’ve seen all year. He doesn’t stand a chance of winning, but I was glad to see the nod.
And I agree, the scene where they lay down “Hard Out Here for Pimp” is one of the great music creation scenes I’ve ever seen.
Jeffrey,
All this should not be that big of a surprise. Film quality overall this year was poor, for starters. This has been a topic in all the media and in your postings.
Secondly, the nominating committee remains a world-driven committee. What do they have to gain by lifting up beauty, excellence, and the like? It goes against the world standard. Only Christ can liberate from that perspective and allow one to see and cherish beauty and excellence.
The Oscars, along with American culture, is just showing its true colors more clearly over the course of time.
I can’t believe The Academy snubbed The Fog. There’s justice for ya.
“Hollywood” and “daring” are mutually exclusive concepts. I guess this year I’ll be watching ONLY for the clothes, instead of just MOSTLY.
I’m surprised the list is as good as it is – really. Stopped paying attention to the nominations (etc.) a long time ago, because they almost always leave the best movies and performances back at the starting gate (if they even get that far).
Also, since the Academy works in the way that the Grammies work (lots of insiders putting up money for incredibly elaborate/expensive lobbying campaigns plus a biased jury), well…
Who ever said Hollywood was fair?!
“Damnation is like this.”
– John Smith
I’m yet to see a number of the nominees, but I cna’t believe Downfall didn’t get any nominations, and that Sin City didn’t get a cinematography nod.
Downfall was nominated for best Foreign film – LAST year – and lost out to “The Sea Inside”.
And before anyone goes there… “Born Into Brothels” was nominated – LAST year – and won!
But at least THAT story’s author admitted in the prologue of his fiction that his story was an imaginative embellishment of the true story, and not to be accepted as an alternate gospel.
He still managed to get kicked out of the church, though!
It seems ignorance (rather than stupidity) is the main problem here.
Hey, I’m still holding out for Harvey Keitel’s tell-all bio: Gospel of the Bronx Judas.
Andrew writes:
C’mon, Jeffrey, I know you’re better than this. To call those who disagree with you ‘dumb’ seems more like a tactic of that other Christian film critic we all know and admire. Sure, the Gospel of Judas is bunk, but I hardly think it’s appropriate to criticize the IQ of those who are sucked in by the hype. Perhaps ‘credulous’ would be more appropriate?
Andrew:
Oh, and I’ll take the otherworldliness and intellectual depth of ‘Last Temptation,’ despite its substantial flaws, over Mel’s sadomasochistic vision and evangelical media blitz any day (although ‘Jesus of Montreal’ is by far my favorite Jesus film).
First, to believe this, someone has to decide to believe “The Gospel of Judas” in its contradictions of the other four gospels. Why would you quickly do that, other than out of an eagerness to be contrary, or a zeal to snatch some quick and easy “de-bunking” of the gospel?
Second, you have to accept the mainstream media’s word that the Gospel of Judas is “rocking the Christian world” when a quick check of Christianity Today or other reliable Christian journals shows that no such thing is taking place.
So perhaps “dumb” is a strong word, but “ignorant” isn’t nearly strong enough.
The problem is not necessarily that some Christians are ‘dumb’ or even ‘ignorant.’ The real problem is that the media willfully distorts and embellishes language as a means of generating controversy and readership. With stories like this, which within scholarly circles are old news and not the least bit controversial, the goal is to upset the general public, not to make a valid statement in regards to history or theology. “Scholars” such as Elaine Pagels, who ride the pre-Easter-media-blitz-against-Christianity don’t realize that in the long run, the joke is on them.
Seems to me that the double joke of it all is that if this is the first time a complete version of this has surfaced, then we know now that Irenaeus knew exactly what he was talking about when he explained why it was condemened in the first place, and wasn’t being dishonest when he explained the reasons why.
Actually, according to Bruce Chilton, a widely respected scholar, there is reason to believe that Irenaeus was referring to a different Gospel of Judas.