AMPAS announced this year’s contenders for the most prestigious prize in film business yesterday, and here follows my take on their choices.

I’m a person with a nagging urge to often legitimize my actions, so I’m going to precede this by briefly explaining two things: why I believe the Academy Award nominations are up for discussion, and why the Oscars are important at all.

Accolades are controversial by nature, especially in the entertainment industry where the prize-givings often unfold within ceremonies. The problem in these cases is that actually awarding someone often takes the backseat to producing a spectacular show.

The lavish Oscar ceremony, an annual congregation for Hollywood’s A-listers and an extension of Paris’ finest catwalks, continually faces the prejudice of being an entirely self-applauding act, a backslapping feast for people from the film industry with no real merit for the public.

While I can’t deny the narcissistic aspect of the yearly show in and around the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, it is simply not true that the Oscars are of no siginificant consequence. The thirteen-and-a half inches tall golden statuette is the most recognized film award in the world; winning films visibly list their Oscar success(es) to promote their sales on video and DVD, and trailers for upcoming films that feature Academy Award-winning actors make a point to remind us of it.

The bottom line is that the Oscar (ideally) distinguishes movies on the basis of quality and thus helps form a canon in the rich landscape of English-language film. Today’s greatest achievements in motion picture need to be preserved for future generations to remember. A canon ensures just that.

But this leaves the voting body, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scieneces (AMPAS), with a considerable responsibility. It’s not easy to nail down the year’s best work into a definitive list of five or three; but it’s a necessary filtering process.

The job of narrowing down candidates for (ultimately) the canon falls to the peers of the motion picture industry who constitute the Academy. The job of keeping the Academy in check by discussing whether or not they made good, sensible choices falls to film journalists and critics - such as myself.

Which brings me back to my original intention for this commentary piece: to address this year’s list of Academy Award nominees - to applaud AMPAS for bold choices, to bemoan them for blatant oversights, and to once again bring back to memory 2007’s cinematic highlights.

This year, we have two visionary films in No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood deservedly going head to head with eight nominations apiece, followed closely by the ingenious literary adaptation Atonement and the tense judicial drama Michael Clayton with seven each. Along with indie darling Juno, up for four awards, these are the five films that are competing for the main Best Picture Oscar.

On the one hand I was glad to see that a celebrated British film like Atonement made the cut. While it was an early favourite upon its autumn release, US critics seemed to be agreeing on other movies in their top ten lists by the end of the year to the point where Joe Wright’s brilliantly crafted movie was looking more and more like an outsider on the other side of the Atlantic. Its recent Golden Globe triumph and the considerable attention it received at the BAFTAs turned Atonement’s fortunes back around just in time.

On the other hand, I cannot understand the Best Picture and Best Director nominations for Tony Gilroy’s Michael Clayton. The Bourne-trilogy screenwriter created an impressive movie with his directing debut - it’s terrifically acted, and the nods for Clooney, Swinton and Wilkinson are undeniably just - but it is so apparent that Gilroy’s intelligent script took precedence over what ended up a largely conventional directing approach, and I just felt that the film falls short of other, more cunning movies.

Such as Into the Wild. One of my top three films of the year and only recognized by the Directors Guild of America, Sean Penn’s magnificent movie about a young man who forsakes his material life to tramp into the Alaskan wilderness was almost completely shut-out by the Academy. The only nominations it scored were in the Supporting Actor category (Hal Holbrook) and for its editing - both deserved, but the omissions of Sean Penn’s directing and adapted script, of Emile Hirsch’s (literally) self-destructive acting, of Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder’s original songs which so perfectly capture the free and adventurous spirit of the wild outdoors, is very disappointing. 

Short of Hirsch, I have zero gripes with the actors competing in the Leading Role category. The performances of George Clooney (Michael Clayton), Johnny Depp (Sweeney Todd), Tommy Lee Jones (In the Valley of Elah) and Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises) were most definitely among the year’s best. Not that it matters, because this Oscar is already engraved with the name of Daniel Day-Lewis. His portrayal of the oil speculant Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood is out-of-this-world. Plainly said, his is the most captivating acting performance of the decade.

Laura Linney (The Savages) is the surprise nominee in the Best Actress category, getting in at the expense of Angelina Jolie (A Mighty Heart) at the last minute. Cate Blanchett was the only good thing about Elizabeth: The Golden Age, but the fact that she’s also up in the Supporting Actress category (for her interpretation of Bob Dylan in I’m Not There) means she’s likely to split votes.

It’s Julie Christie (Away From Her) and Marion Cotillard (La Vie En Rose) who are favourites to take this home, the latter being my personal pick. Props to AMPAS for nominating a largely unknown French actress for the role as a French chanteuse in a French movie - similar to Emile Hirsch with Christopher MacCandleless, Cotillard not only played the part of Edith Piaf, she embodied it onscreen from beautiful and strong to ugly and broken.

The line-up in the Supporting Acting categories is perfect as it is. The Assassination of Jesse James is another of the cruelly underrepresented films, but happily the Academy is taking Casey Affleck’s spellbinding turn as the cowardly assassin Robert Ford into account. Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men) is the safest bet here, and he will win it for convincing in the role of one of the most unsettling film villains of all time. 

The part of Briony Tallis in Atonement was played by three different actresses at different stages of the character’s life, and it is good to see that the young age of Saoirse Ronan did not put off voters from selecting by and far the best acting performance of the film. At the other end of the age spectrum, Hal Holbrook is turning 83 in a month and Ruby Dee (American Gangster) is already 83, so congratulations to the pair for deserved nominations.

Looking at the five nominated directors, I’m sorely missing Sean Penn (Into the Wild) who should have got in at the expense of Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton). I’d have liked to read Joe Wright’s (Atonement) name on here too, but I cannot for the life of me decide which of the other four directors he should have replaced - Juno’s Jason Reitman perhaps? I do feel like Juno is living a bit off Little Miss Sunshine’s success last year and riding its indie hit wave, and I wouldn’t say it is as good a film.

The directing of Joel & Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men) and Paul Thomas Anderson (There Will Be Blood) was groundbreaking and will be talked about for years to come, and fortunately it’s looking like the Directing Award will be decided between these two. I can’t comment on Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly until I see it on Monday, but he snatched the Golden Globe from under everyone’s noses and my impressions from seeing the trailer are that the French film is wild and absolutely crazy. Which is a good thing.

No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood look in their own league in the Best Adapted Screenplay category, the latter at a slight disadvantage for being less loyal to its source material and less wordy than its competitors. Sarah Polley’s script for Away From Her is a surprise entry (taking the place of Sean Penn’s Into The Wild), but my personal favourite here is Christopher Hampton’s skillful adaptation of Ian McEwen’s bestseller Atonement. 

The Best Original Screenplay Oscar looks ready to go to Diablo Cody for Juno (the category has a tradition of rewarding indie films), although it might be awarded to Michael Clayton as compensation for missing out in the main categories where it’s not a favourite to win. It’s also very refreshing to find the script of an animated movie (Brad Bird for Ratatouille) up for an Oscar - Pixar films especially have a nack for precise and inspired screenwriting that has long lacked appropriate respect.

Speaking of Ratatouille, it was always going to be nominated in the Best Animated Feature category, so the more interesting question here always was: with whom else? I’m rather delighted that AMPAS went against the mainstream here and decided against The Simpsons Movie and Bee Movie, and in favour of Persepolis (which due to some overtly strict Academy ruling couldn’t get into the Best Foreign Language Film category) and Surf’s Up (which was rather refreshing with its mock-documentary narrative).

I saw lots of good to great films not in the English language this year - Persepolis, The Kite Runner, Lust, Caution, La Vie En Rose, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days - but due to more weird rulings, all of these candidates were either ineligible or voted out early, making for a list of pretty much unknowns in the Best Foreign Language Film category. This apparently has led to Academy members debating whether or not to amend some of those rulings for next year’s awards. I’ve got my fingers crossed.

Moving on to the technical categories, The Bourne Ultimatum (yay!) and Transformers should definitely grab a win or two, particularly in the Sound and Effects categories. On a personal note, I’m glad that The Golden Compass wasn’t ignored for its beautiful art direction and special effects after it tanked at the US Box Office. But being nominated is as far as the film will get, as Special Effects is a certainty for Transformers and Art Direction will be decided between Atonement and Sweeney Todd.

While I’d say that the most outstanding effort in cinematography was that of Roger Deakins on The Assassination of Jesse James (who knew that a Western could be captured in such melancholy pictures?), and the year’s best editing was the work of Jay Cassidy on Into the Wild (who seamlessly intercut the spirited build-up to Chris MacCandleless’s Alaskan adventure with its intellectual backstory and its shocking payoff), these are categories (at least one, if not both) that often go to the Best Picture winner to bring up its Oscar total. So we’re looking at Best Editing for No Country for Old Men and Best Cinematography for There Will Be Blood (or No Country again if that movie ends up sweeping the Awards). 

The big WTF?!-entry on the nominations list is definitely Norbit for Best Make-Up. I saw a lot of really terrible movies last year, and Norbit is in the top three. I mentioned that AMPAS has a responsibility; how on earth can you encourage Eddie Murphy to do more films in which he dresses up as an obese old lady or two? This category only has three nominees (La Vie En Rose and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End are the other two), and you can’t honestly tell me that the whole rest of the movie year doesn’t have any better make-up to show for than that in Norbit???

Finally, the music categories provided a few upsets aswell. First came the news that the frontrunner for Best Score, Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood’s atonal and intense music for There Will Be Blood was ruled ineligible because the film used less of his original music compared classical music - the argument is that voters might end up voting for the wrong music. As a Radiohead fan, I’m bummed. At least now I can undistractedly root for Dario Marianelli’s Atonement score; the way he incorporated that type-writer sound was a stroke of genius. 

But issues like the Greenwood disqualification also underline my gripes with the music categories in general: why these strict rules? Why not simply commend those films who put music to the best use period? No matter how long the music features in the film, or how prominent it is, or if there are words put to the instruments. Why can only instrumental scores be nominated, but not films driven by songs to equal effect?

 Into the Wild and (particularly) Once were driven by their songs, but have to make do with the (in my opinion very redundant) Best Original Song category - where Eddie Vedder’s Golden Globe-winning “Guaranteed” didn’t even make it in, but THREE songs from Enchanted instead. At least the likelihood of split votes means Once’s “Falling Slowly” has a decent shot at winning ahead of the Enchanted trio. And I can’t wait to see Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova perform it live at the Oscars. Providing the ongoing Writers Strike doesn’t force the whole ceremony to be called off like at the Golden Globes. Because I guess a little show to go with the handing over of prizes does make the ceremony more memorable. And movie awards are here to remind us of great achievements in film, after all.

To sum it all up, I’ll be content if any of Atonement, No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood are awarded with the Best Picture Oscar. They are bold and masterfully crafted movies that will deservedly also collect some of the acting awards (Day-Lewis, Bardem) and a further handful of the minor awards. I currently predict No Country for Old Men coming out on top with five Oscars (Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actor, Editing and Adapted Screenplay), while There Will Be Blood receives three (Best Actor, Cinematography and Sound Editing) and Atonement makes do with two minor ones (Best Costume Design and Score).

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Posted by Tai in Awards, Commentary, Movies • Add to del.icio.us Add to Digg