Sulmoney’s Oscar Predictions – Best Actor

Hans got a compliment from his training teacher; he was commended on his ability to read. High five!

From a two woman race in the Best Actress category, we move on to a two man race for Best Actor. From a career resurrection, to another fine performance in his resume, the other nominees need not come Sunday night. The nominees include Richard Jenkins (The Visitor), Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon), Sean Penn (Milk),  Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler). (Full disclosure: I still need to see The Visitor, don’t judge me!)

Who Will Win

Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler

Hollywood loves a redemption story, and there is none hotter right now than Mickey Rourke’s. Poised to be the biggest Hollywood star of the 80s and 90s, Rourke took a well documented detour and became Hollywood poison. Slowly working his way back into everyone’s good graces, Rourke completed his comeback with perhaps his finest and most authentic performance to date as a broken down, aging wrestler out for one last hurrah, a role that critics point out was not hard for him to pull off as it is his story. Nonetheless, it was the best performance of the year by anyone, and one that will studied for years.

Who Should Win

Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler

Mickey has this on lock. I hope. If it is not going to be Mickey Rourke though, it will be this guy…

Sean Penn in Milk

Sean Penn gives another amazing performance as Harvey Milk, and is just as deserving as Mickey Rourke for the grand prize. As awful as it may sound to say it, I feel that there may be some sort of homophobic backlash against Penn’s performance, and it may have rubbed some of the voters the wrong way, similar to how Brokeback Mountain and Heath Ledger were seemingly locks a few years back but came away empty handed, save for Ang Lee’s win. Penn is deserving of it, and becomes Harvey Milk, and it is another iconic performance.

Who Was Snubbed

Colin Farrell in In Bruges

Anybody who has followed this blog knows my love and admiration for In Bruges, and at the core of this great picture is a performance from Colin Farrell that will change his career. He earned a Golden Globe for it, and he was an outside shot at getting the nomination, but fans of the film will be rooting for Martin McDonagh in the Original Screenplay category. If you still have not seen this gem, definitely make the effort to see it, and treasure the performance by not only Colin Farrell, but also Bredan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes.

Read Full Post »

Sulmoney’s Oscar Predictions – Best Supporting Actress

As we have recently finished up our top 10 lists of 2008, and the end of the award season coming up in just over one week, The Feature Preachers embark on prognosticating the major Academy Awards categories. We will make sure to belittle each other’s poor selections and life choices in true FP tradition. In our quest to bring something new to critiquing the films, we will not only be predicting who we feel will go home with those little golden naked men on February 22, but who we feel should win, and who was snubbed from receiving a nomination. To kick it off, we start with perhaps the most fiercely debated acting category, Best Supporting Actress. The nominations are Amy Adams (Doubt), Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona), Viola Davis (Doubt), Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler).

Who Will Win

 

Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona

While I disagreed with Hans on the greatness of Woody Allen’s latest, I will give credit where credit is due: Penelope Cruz chews up the screen and brings a saving energy to the film. As soon as she enters the film in the second act of the film in her dramatic and fiery welcome, the entire film becomes better. She has perhaps the biggest supporting role compared to her competitions, and far and away the most flashy and loud, and will probably be why she wins. The frontrunner since its summer release, Cruz has rode the crest of momentum and should be soon able to append Academy Award winner to her name. 

Who Should Win

 

Taraji P. Henson in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Forrest Gump comparisons aside, and the fact that critics were split on the film just as Hans and I were, I hope that we can at least agree that Taraji P. Henson gives a career defining performance as Benjamin Button’s adoptive mother. While Brad Pitt’s performance may have been cold, distant, and hard to relate to for some, we all could feel for Queenie and her desire to be a mother and subsequent unconditional love for her son born under unusual circumstances. She was the human core of the film, and was a touch of reality in an unbelievable story. 

Who Was Snubbed

 

Rosemarie DeWitt in Rachel Getting Married

Rachel Getting Married is a wonderful movie…but there is about 30 minutes of extraneous material that should have been cut, and the handheld camera photography was about 0% necessary, and about 100% unwelcome. There are some incredibly raw and human performances from Anne Hathaway (more on her in a future post) and the relatively unknown Rosemarie DeWitt. Playing the one getting married, DeWitt embodies the role of a seemingly forgotten about because of her normalcy sister and daughter to perfection, and personifies the roller coaster  of emotions of a bride masterfully. Though this may be the first time you have heard of Rosemarie DeWitt, I am sure it will not be the last.

Read Full Post »

Sulmoney’s #3 – Pineapple Express

There is no doubt that Doubt (shoot me now) is a great piece of theatre, either in the playhouse, or the cinema house. Hans is spot in saying that this film is tailor made for actors to strut their craft, and with less than capable thespians, Doubt would have been a debacle. The parallels to Frost/Nixon and Doubt are inevitable, as both were originally plays that were adapted for the screen; while Frost/Nixon may have been flashier and it got the Best Picture nomination, Doubt is the picture that will last the test of time. We get just what we expect from veterans Philip Seymour Hoffman and Meryl Streep, but the real surprises are Viola Davis in her lone scene, and Amy Adams, who is on the verge of becoming a huge star. The best acting of the year is on display in these tense two hours, and the four aforementioned players got their well deserved Academy Award nominations. However, what kept me from truly embracing this film as one of the year’s best is my sheer frustration with Meryl Streep’s Sister Aloysius’ motivations. Perhaps that is why she is such an effective screen villain (or hero, depending on your viewpoint), but for me, it was purely infuriating. The final scene, designed to be (or not to be) some sort of conclusion, only added to my anger. Definitely something that I will revisit in the future though.

Now, for something totally different, I present what will likely be the most controversial pick of the litter, my #3 film of the year, David Gordon Green’s Pineapple Express.

Pineapple Express

True Romance is my favorite movie of all time. If you have never seen it, well the cast alone should make you run out to get it immediately. Don’t waste your money on the rental; buy it now. Before Brad Pitt was Brad Pitt, he was Floyd the stoner, a guy who never got off his couch while everyone he ran into during the course of the film was caught up in a huge cross country chase involving drugs, guns, love, gangsters, and Elvis. The genius that is Judd Apatow had the brilliant idea of bringing Floyd from a bit character used for comic relief to the forefront and main protagonist of a story involving, well, drugs, guns, love, gangsters, and (sadly) no Elvis.

Kids, drugs are bad for you

Seth Rogen plays Dale Denton, a man who aspires to follow a different Christian Slater movie, with a habit that brings him together with the absolutely amazing James Franco as Saul Silver, a new stoner flick legend. When Dale witnesses a murder and leaves behind a blunt of the rarest weed in the city, with the murderer being the top most drug dealer in the city, the chase begins for Dale and Saul that leads them on a voyage that includes a night in the forest, a simultaneously hilarious and grimace inducing fight with the great Danny McBride as Red, selling drugs to minors to raise bus fare, a car chase unlike any you have ever seen, and a finale in an underground secret ex-army base. Oh, and don’t forget about the Asians.

I'd take my pants off for James Franco as well

What separates Pineapple Express from all the other comedies from 2008 is its perfect blend of two genres. It works as a stoner comedy, and it works as a summer action flick as well. The combination of the two works wonders, and is a welcome relief from an earlier 2008 stoner flick disaster. The laughs are constant, from the black and white introduction, to the diner epilogue, and the violence is brutal and pulls no punches. This is a movie that improves on every viewing, and credit goes to David Gordon Green for his solid direction. The  supporting roles are played to perfection, from Craig Robinson and Kevin Corrigan as two veteran enforcers who come across as a more real Jules and Vincent, to Gary Cole and Rosie Perez thoroughly enjoying their villainous turns. Danny McBride establishes himself as a player on the rise in the comedy scene, and Seth Rogen adds another notch to his comedic hits belt.

The main star of Pineapple Express, and the reason that we will be watching this for years to come, is James Franco. Franco, as we have never seen him before, fully immerses himself into Saul Silver, a role for which he garnered a Golden Globe nomination; in conjunction with his totally opposite role in Milk, he establishes himself as a bona fide movie star, capable of doing the summer blockbusters, to comedies, to rousing award worthy offerings. Missing out on this movie and especially Franco’s performance is like killing a unicorn…with a bomb.

Read Full Post »

Hans’s #6 – Frost/Nixon

Brad Pitt is not a great actor. He was awkward and stilted in Se7en, terrible in Troy, cartoonish in Burn After Reading, and he’s pretty much played himself in every other notable movie he’s made (Fight Club, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Ocean’s Everything). Sorry Sulmoney, but his performance in Benjamin Button was not “wonderful” and “subdued,” it was boring and blank-faced. Despite its enormous promise (and premise), Benjamin Button was ultimately a fairly empty love story with a deceptively narrow scope set against a disappointingly lackluster backdrop. I guess the film was pretty striking from a visual and technical standpoint, though, so if you’ve got the mind of a raccoon that’s content with collecting shiny objects from the garbage heap, I could see it finding its way to #7 on your list.

And did I mention Brad Pitt is terrible with accents? Because he is. Here’s my #6:

Frost/Nixon

I heart the craft of politicking, and I heart the art of argumentation, so Frost/Nixon, a movie that’s literally about two people sitting in a room and arguing about politics, was a no-brainer for me. Sure, when you put it that way the story really doesn’t sound very cinematic at all, but what the premise lacks in showiness, the execution makes up for with a tried and true formula that’s worked for one famous film franchise at least 6 times. In one corner you’ve got Richard Nixon: master intellectualizer and heavyweight champion of the world with the hurting bombs to prove it (literally), and in the other corner sits David Frost: the underdog with nothing to lose and everything to prove. Who will win? Well, we kinda already know the answer, but we knew Rocky wouldn’t lose, either (at least in part II), and it didn’t stop us from enjoying that one.

You wanna know what napalm really smells like in the morning? Pull my finger.

The underdog structure is brilliant, but it’d be nothing without Frank Langella’s uncanny performance as Nixon. Langella deserves credit for refraining from playing Nixon as a complete douchebag, which deserves an Oscar nod in itself. Instead, he gives us a pretty rounded and surprisingly hilarious picture of one of the oddest political figures in our nation’s history. Like Rocky’s heavyweight adversary, Apollo Creed, we don’t necessarily hate Nixon, but after watching his arrogance slowly build through the course of the movie, we can’t help but cheer when the knockout blow finally lands.

Frost/Nixon is far from a perfect movie, but really nothing on this list is without flaw. It didn’t need the documentary style, it pushed the boxing metaphors a little too far, and the acting does get a bit hammy at times. The good far outweighs the bad, though, and the climactic clash of wits and words is so satisfying, you’ll forget where it went wrong.

Read Full Post »

Sulmoney’s #7 – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Never in my life did I ever think a film starring THE Jean-Claude Van Damme would crack anybody’s top 10, but alas, Hans has put the man who portrayed Frank Dux in one of my favorite martial arts films ever into his ever degenerating top 10 list, one that will surely live in infamy. What’s next, Rambo? After all that though, I may or may not be acquiring the aforementioned movie at the moment…

Alas, we now enter the somewhat boring part of my top 10 as I select some of the obligatory movies, Kicking them off, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button…

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

From the moment I first saw the trailer before the midnight showing of The Dark Knight, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button grabbed my attention. What an interesting premise! Brad Pitt! Cate Blanchett! David Fincher! All the recipes for success were in place for something truly special, and the hype just grew exponentially for the next 4-5 months, and it was already being penciled in as an across the boards lock for award season. When the release date came about, the film was never able to live up to the enormous hype that preceded it, but still won me over as a true marvel and showcase of why I love movies in the first place, and a wonderful love story in its own right that kept my rapt attention for its nearly 3 hour running time.

David Fincher has been one of my favorite directors for a long time, and the time had come for him to make a pure blockbuster. While I still prefer the vastly underrated Zodiac (easily one of my favorites from 2007), Fincher is a director who is not afraid to take his time to tell a story. Much has been made of the slow pace of Benjamin Button, but I find it to be a strong point. I mean, we are talking about the full life of an individual born under unusual circumstances. To rush through any part of his life would have been an injustice to the wholly unique idea, hatched by F. Scott Fitzgerald back in 1921.

Meeting in the middle...

The film can not be mentioned without the incredible work put in by all of the actors. Brad Pitt is wonderful as the title character in a very subdued performance that could have been interpreted totally differently and probably would have ruined the film, and Cate Blanchett is stunning as has come to be expected as Button’s lifelong love Daisy, in what should net her another Academy Award. Taraji P. Henson especially shines in her role as Benjamin Button’s adopted mother Queenie, setting herself up for at least a Best Supporting Actress nomination, if not a win.

Finally, the special effects that went into this film set a new standard for what we expect from the movies. Superman, Star Wars, Jurrasic Park, The Lord of the Rings, and now, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button are landmarks in technical achievement; nearly every shot is an effect shot with the complcated aging process with the actors, but it all is done so well that it allows you to enjoy the film for what it is: a magical epic dealing wth love and aging.

Read Full Post »