So, the Oscar nominations were made this morning, and unlike in previous years, I’ve seen lots of the movies and so can make intelligent commentary on them. Rather than “pick the winners,” though, I’m just going to tell you what I think.
Best Picture
Nominees: “Atonement,””Juno,””Michael Clayton,””No Country for Old Men,””There Will Be Blood”
I’ve seen all of these except for “Atonement,” which I’ve heard was very good but knocked no one’s socks off. “Michael Clayton” is a good movie but it’s nowhere near as amazing as some of its competitors. “Juno” was very good but it’s small— it gets this year’s “Nomination for Amazing Success.”
I had very strong negative reactions to both “No Country for Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood,” but for very different reasons. As I’ve told everyone I’ve talked to, “No Country for Old Men” is a movie firing on all cylinders: the direction, the acting, the cinematography, everything is just great. However, the overall theme seems to be: “Life’s a bitch, then you die, and there’s nothing you can fucking do about it.” Oh, yay.
“There Will Be Blood” is a very (very) long movie about a complicated, evil man exploiting California’s oil riches (and everything else he can get his hands on), and in the end you’re like, “Yup, he’s a bad guy all right.” The title is a nice pun (that none of the reviews I’ve seen have commented on), and the production design is unbelievable.
Of the two, “No Country for Old Men” is definitely the more accessible, and I would give it the award.
Actor
Nominees: George Clooney, “Michael Clayton”; Daniel Day-Lewis, “There Will Be Blood”; Johnny Depp, “Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street”; Tommy Lee Jones, “In the Valley of Elah”; Viggo Mortensen, “Eastern Promises.”
I’ve seen four of the five. George was good, but not great. Didn’t see “In the Valley of Elah.”
In “Eastern Promises,” Viggo (an American), Vincent Cassel (a Frenchman), and Armin Mueller-Stahl (a German) play three Russians, and never once during the entire movie did I think, “Wow, those are damn good accents.” No, I thought: Hey, who knew Viggo Mortensen was so Russian?
Johnny Depp is very good in “Sweeney Todd” (and he sings!), but it’s kind of silly to compare that performance to something like Daniel Day-Lewis in “There Will Be Blood.” I don’t know if I’ve ever seen another movie with Day-Lewis in it, because I’ve never seen that man before. I’ve heard Day-Lewis is the scary kind of Method actor, and apparently it pays off. I guess it’s pretty easy to tell who I think will get it in this category.
Actress
Nominees: Cate Blanchett, “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”; Julie Christie, “Away From Her”; Marion Cotillard, “La Vie en Rose”; Laura Linney, “The Savages”; Ellen Page, “Juno.”
Okay, so much for my boast about seeing the movies: I’ve seen exactly one performance here, and that was Ellen Page as “Juno.” She was hysterical. I don’t think she has a prayer.
Supporting Actor
Nominees: Casey Affleck, “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”; Javier Bardem, “No Country for Old Men”; Hal Holbrook, “Into the Wild”; Philip Seymour Hoffman, “Charlie Wilson’s War”; Tom Wilkinson, “Michael Clayton.”
Bardem: excellent at the unstoppable killer in “No Country.” So good, in fact, that he made me question the sanity of my friend who thinks he’s the hottest thing since sliced bread. Philip Seymour Hoffman: once again on the FBI’s Most Wanted for theft of every scene he’s in. Tom Wilkinson: an actor completely without fear, and definitely the best thing about “Michael Clayton.” I can never guess the Supporting Actor/Actress categories ahead of time, but I think Wilkinson was the best of the three.
Supporting Actress
Nominees: Cate Blanchett, “I’m Not There”; Ruby Dee, “American Gangster”; Saoirse Ronan, “Atonement”; Amy Ryan, “Gone Baby Gone”; Tilda Swinton, “Michael Clayton.”
I didn’t seen “Atonement” or “Gone Baby Gone,” so I don’t know. Cate Blanchett was good (but not that good) in the severely over-praised “I’m Not There.” Ruby Dee was not much in “American Gangster,” a movie primarily about haircuts in the 70s. Tilda Swinton was very good in “Michael Clayton,” so of the three I’d have to give it to her.
Director
Julian Schnabel, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”; Jason Reitman, “Juno”; Tony Gilroy, “Michael Clayton”; Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, “No Country for Old Men”; Paul Thomas Anderson, “There Will Be Blood.”
There will be a shoot-out in the parking lot between the Coen Brothers (who really reined in their worst behavior in “No Country”) and Paul Thomas Anderson (who definitely stamped his movie with MINE all over it). Unless somebody gets a sweep, I think it’s probably PTA.
Adapted Screenplay
Christopher Hampton, “Atonement”; Sarah Polley, “Away from Her”; Ronald Harwood, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”; Joel Coen & Ethan Coen, “No Country for Old Men”; Paul Thomas Anderson, “There Will Be Blood.”
The only proper way to judge Adapted Screenplay is to read the original material. I would bet few, if any, of the Oscar voters do that, and they simply vote for whichever one they liked the best. I would probably pick “No Country.”
Original Screenplay
Nominees: Diablo Cody, “Juno”; Nancy Oliver, “Lars and the Real Girl”; Tony Gilroy, “Michael Clayton”; Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava and Jim Capobianco, “Ratatouille”; Tamara Jenkins, “The Savages.”
Damnation. No idea. Like most people, I disparaged “Juno” sight unseen, and after I saw it I went, “Whoa! First script!” One of the best things about “Juno” is (past the dialogue, which was hilarious and crisp) that none of the characters behave in the way you expect them too. Teenaged girl gets pregnant? How do her parents react? Wrong. It was constantly surprising, which was refreshing. (Darin’s two cents: he thinks “Juno” will win this one.)
And while “Michael Clayton” has its problems — for one thing, they had to call it “Michael Clayton” because they couldn’t think of a more relevant title — there are several things about the script that were just fabulous. Like the scene at the hit-and-run driver’s house, which we see twice: the first time it hits us one way, the second time it hits us completely differently.
“Ratatouille”: a really good script, suffering from the usual Pixar problem of the tag-along female (an actual Hollywood term, folks!).
It was obvious when we saw the movies that “No Country For Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood” would be the big kahunas of this year’s Oscars. “There Will Be Blood” irritated me in so many ways that I’m partial to “No Country.” And I walked out of “No Country” swearing a blue streak about it.
The big question is, of course: Will there even BE an Oscar ceremony this year?
“No Country for Old Men” had a very different theme for me. In almost any story, you side with the protagonist. They are the center of what makes it worthy of a story (we all want out lives to be story-worthy), and perhaps more importantly, they represent “good”. Llewllyn Moss turns out to be a “false protagonist”, a literary device rarely used. But even more interesting is that Ed Tom Bell (the supposed actual protagonist) ends up stepping out of the center of everything, in a wonderful anticlimactic scene.
Where is our protagonist? As the movie drew to an end I found myself scrambling for a “side” to be on. Perhaps out of sheer elimination, I found closeness with the old farmer with chickens in his pickup, or the two boys out playing when they see the accident. These people are simple, they will never have a story-worthy life. They’ll live happily, removed from murder, drugs, and even great victory. This is what our protagonist Ed Tom Bell realizes he really wanted.
(Spoilers for No Country ahead!)
“Who is the protagonist?” is a great question for “No Country” — it’s one of the reasons the movie and story feel so off-kilter. We think we’re in one fairly typical chase/revenge thriller when BAM! All of our expectations are upset and we’re left floundering for a center. That is actually one of the things I really liked about “No Country” — that you absolutely, positively had no idea where it was going.
I don’t think we’re supposed to get that not having a story-worthy life is the answer. If anything, the movie says we should never do anything one way or the other. That scene with the boys at the end is particularly significant — they haven’t done anything, and yet they’ve been touched by the supernatural evil force Chigurh. I can’t remember exactly what happens (it’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie), but the fact that there are two boys is important: it’s a coin flip as to how they’re going to turn out as a result of this chance meeting.
(There are lots of twos in the movie: Chigurh and the Mexicans as the hunter-killers; Llewellyn Moss and Carson Wells going after Chigurh for very different reasons; the two deputies, neither of whom is very bright, one of who ends up dead and the other’s just not very effective; the two boys; the two coin flips…)
Was there anything anyone could have done to change what happens in this movie? If the unstoppable Chigurh isn’t going to get you, the Mexicans will. These guys are playing on a whole different level than local sheriff Bell, who’s completely overmatched. Moss hasn’t got a chance. Even people who don’t get involved are going to get run over by these forces: Moss’s wife, the man in the pickup, any of the people in that motel. There’s nothing any of them can do to avoid this. It might be a lot like life — none of us knows who’s in that stopped car up ahead, or who might be in a hotel room we might have thought was empty — but the story felt like it was hitting me over the head with how tragic and inevitable everything was.
Thanks for the recap’ I hope Marion Cotillard got the golden statue (sorry for being French supporter)