my yearly date with oscar…

Every year, I have a ritual of watching as many Academy Award nominated films, actors, and directors I can before the award ceremony. If I’m lucky, enough of the best actors and directors overlap with nominated films that seeing the films rounds out the majority, if not all, of the actors/directors. This was largely the case with this year’s nominations. Sadly, year-after-year, the Academy has been losing my “trust” in their selections. Instead of giving the award to the person who probably deserves it in that particular role/situation, the Academy has become more of a political machine – churning out awards for those who are “due” for an award (whether due to age, prior over-looked achievements, race, gender, or family connections, etc…). I HATE this about the Oscars… and have become much more a fan of the Golden Globes.

I am a big believer of giving the award to those who deserve it for that particular award’s purpose. Performance should be separated from story (ie. a great story can still be great with minimal acting), and the story should be separate from the acting (ie. spectacular acting can take place in the most uncompelling stories). For instance, Adam posted that he is rooting for Don Cheadle for Best Actor for his role in Hotel Rwanda. I do not mean to dismiss his opinion, however, in my opinion, I thought that Hotel Rwanda was a compelling story, and Don Cheadle did a very good job. However, compared with Jamie Foxx’s performance in Ray, it is my opinion that the Foxx “out-foxed” all the other nominees. Who I think the Academy will choose: 

Best Picture: Toss-up between Million Dollar Baby and The Aviator – but having to choose one, I think the Academy will go for Million Dollar Baby.

Best Director: Toss-up between Clint Eastwood for Million Dollar Baby and Martin Scorsese for The Aviator – but having to choose one, I think the Academy will give it to Scorsese because he has never won, despite the fact that this will be his fifth Best Director nomination. In other words, it’s time… (Clint Eastwood won in 1992 for Unforgiven). 

Best Actor: Jamie Foxx for Ray

Best Actress: Hillary Swank for Million Dollar Baby

Best Adapted Screenplay: Toss-up between Sideways and Million Dollar Baby – having to choose one, I’m afraid (and would be terribly sad that) the Academy will give it to Sideways.

Best Original Screenplay: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless MindWho I think deserves the Oscar (only categories where I have seen a large majority of nominees) 

Best Picture: Million Dollar Baby

Best Actor: Jamie Foxx for Ray

Best Director: I’ve only seen four of the five nominees’ productions (I haven’t seen Vera Drake directed by Mike Leigh), but I would venture to say that I think Martin Scorsese deserves the award this year. 

Best Adapted Screeplay: Million Dollar Baby 

Best Original Screenplay: The Aviator

Also, Finding Neverland was one of the best movies I’ve ever seen and Sideways was perhaps the worst movie I have ever seen!