Oscars, or the Lauras instead

[lauradi7dw]

I was planning to watch the Academy Awards show tonight, but I'll try to make myself turn it off early. I mostly want to see what people are wearing (would it be possible to have a year without sternum exposure? Probably not.) and DeGeneres's monologue and the tribute to the people who died in 2006. It's common for people to disagree with which movies were nominated or which of the nominated films was the best, but I've decided that I disagree with some of the categories as they exist.

So - here are some of mine instead (based only upon movies that I've seen)

Best actor (gender inclusive) 25 & under

Abigail Breslin
Ivana Baquero
Kazunari Ninomiya
Paul Dano
Sarala
Shareeka Epps
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Best actor (gender inclusive) 26 & older

Christian Bale (?)
Clive Owen
Helen Mirren
Ulrich Mühe
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best epic quest
An inconvenient truth
Cars
Children of Men
Pan's Labyrinth
United 93
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best picture about bad choices
Letters from Iwo Jima
(Babel and The Departed would go here, but I don't think they're so notable)
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best musical, sort of
Dave Chapelle's Block Party
A Prairie Home Companion
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cinematography: sweeping vistas
Babel
Painted Veil

cinematography: use of shadow & light
Black Dahlia
The Good German (a fudge - I've only seen clips, not the whole movie)
The Illusionist

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OK, I'm getting bored already, and they're my own categories. Another few opinions and I'll be done.

Jack Nicholson - am I the only person who thinks any movie with Jack Nicholson would be better
without Jack Nicholson? I admit that I've never seen Chinatown, or Easy Rider, or Five Easy Pieces. They're supposed to be pretty good...
I think the best of JN was as narrator for an animated version of Kipling's "Elephant's Child."

I think costumes should enhance the story without distracting from it, which means that they should be at least somewhat accurate for the time/place/class of the characters. Subtlety is a good thing (the fact that the costumes in Marie Antoinette are so dazzling doesn't violate this - the extravagance was strategic to the story). Exception - We were outraged when Angels & Insects (1995) didn't win in the year that Miramax bought off the voters to give every award to An English Patient. A&I had costumes that were distracting, but in a wonderful way. In general they were regular clothes for the period, but some of them were remeniscent of a carapace, or a butterfly's wings.

Instead of offering a choice about best score, I'll just recommend the annual NPR analysis of the nominees.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7550328

Comments

[luckylefty.livejournal.com]

I think Five Easy Pieces is way overrated, as is Chinatown.

The Jack Nicholoson movies I like are As Good as it Gets, The Shining, and A Few Good Men. In the last of these, you also get to see Tom Cruise do a Jack Nicholson imitation.