3 posts from February 2009

Sean predicts the Oscars as he does every year...

So after seeing four of the five Best Picture nominees so far, The Reader being the hold out, here are my predictions for the Oscars. I placed in parentheses an alternate choice, if I have one or am rooting for someone else. Feel free to play along....

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire (My personal choice would be Frost/Nixon.)

Best Foreign Language Film: Waltz With Bashir

Best Animated Feature: Wall-E

Best Documentary Feature: Man On Wire

Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire

Best Actor: Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler (Sean Penn, Milk, and Rourke deserve to tie for this award.)

Best Actress: Melissa Leo, Frozen River

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight

Best Supporting Actress: Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler (This is my risky pick!)

Best Original Screenplay: In Bruges

Best Adapted Screenplay: Slumdog Millionaire (My personal choice would be Frost/Nixon)

Best Cinematography: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (This is a category that I use as a DVD selection criterion. This film is in a battle for the award with Slumdog Millionaire.  I split this one with Film Editing to reward both.)

Best Film Editing: Slumdog Millionaire (Of any of the awards, this is the one that this film deserves the most.)

Best Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Costume Design: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Original Score: Defiance (Slumdog Millionaire deserves this award for its incredible fusion of Indian and techno music.)

Best Sound Editing: The Dark Knight

Best Sound Mixing: The Dark Knight

Best Visual Effects: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Best Original Song: "Down To Earth", Peter Gabriel, Wall-E

Best Animated Short Film:  This Way Up

Best Short Live Action Short Film: Spielzeugland (Toyland) (Manon On The Asphalt sounds promising though... hard to figure out who deserves these things when you can't watch them unless you buy them first.)

Best Makeup: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Sean announces his 5 favorite Best Picture Oscar winners of the last 81years...

The Academy Awards have always been a spectacular American event that has both been celebrated and derided. I personally enjoy the Oscars for what it does for movies, it makes us talk about them and debate what our favorites are. The films, actors, and technicians behind the magic are not always our favorite choices. Sometimes the Oscar's select based on a person's total work or the novelty of a performance. Sometimes the Academy puts a benchmark on the movies and performances of a certain year and tries to guide us to check out what was wrought. And sometimes they get it horribly wrong and the film or performance is just one of those we have to see in order to finish a list of Oscar winners we might attempt to do.

Here are my favorite Best Picture Oscar winners. They might not be yours, but that is OK because I want to know what yours are or hear what you feel is the flaw in my selection. So below is a list followed by a trailer or scene from each of the five films chosen.
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Casablanca (1943)

This is a selection that frankly is a no brainer. This is probably the best film ever made in my opinion, although it ranks second on my all-time favorites. This film is like a satisfying seven course meal. 

Two letters of transit are stolen from German Couriers on a train to Casablanca. The search is on for their killer and Rick Blaine's nightclub is first on Vichy France's place to look. Does Rick have the letters? Who's selling them? Who wants them? Who deserves a ticket to freedom? Who will die because of them? Who will live because of them?

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Lawrence Of Arabia (1962)

A David Lean spectacle that lasts 4 hours but is so worth your time. An incredibly acted and produced telling of the World War 1 British hero T.E. Lawrence and his adventures in the Middle East. I personally am a fan of the "No Prisoners!" scene which you have to see to experience the "WOW What a great scene!" discovery.

 
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All About Eve (1950)

The film that launched a thousands quotes. This film launched my true love of old movies. An acquaintance I made in high school at the lunch table was telling me about the American Movie Classics (AMC) on cable and all the great movies it was playing. This was 1986. She went on and on about a movie titled All About Eve. She taped it for me on VHS and I have been in love with it ever since. I just recently saw it with Stefan on the big screen at the American Film Institute.

The film tells the tale of  40-year-old stage actress Margo Channing who hires on Eve Harrington as her assistant, but fears Eve is scheming to replace her in all venues of her life. Bette Davis is Margo. Anne Baxter is Eve. The stand out to me is George Sanders as Addison Dewitt. In an Oscar-winning role, Addison narrates and plays in this story or deceit, paranoia, and parlor games behind the curtain of the Broadway stage. Did I mention short but memorable parts for both Marilyn Monroe and Thelma Ritter as well?

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Marty (1955)

A Goodyear Television Playhouse teleplay that conquered both television with Rod Steiger and the movie screen with Ernest Borgnine, this great film is honest and real in its casting and emotion. Marty is a 34-year-old butcher whose Italian family is constantly after him to get married. He meets plain-looking schoolteacher Clara. They are both lonely, unglamorous people who have resigned themselves to their unloved lives. But they manage, in time, to grope their way to love. this film is simple and it's plot has been replecated since, but it will tug your heart and revel in its power.

Sean shares a list he came across...

The Congressional Republicans have come up with a list of what they consider "wasteful spending" in the new stimulus package being debated in the Senate. Here is the list below. I bolded those items I disagree are not pork and should be included in the stimulus.  I provide comments along the way. Please tell me your opinions! 

• $2 billion earmark to re-start FutureGen, a near-zero emissions coal power plant in Illinois that the Department of Energy defunded last year because it said the project was inefficient.

• A $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film.

• $650 million for the digital television converter box coupon program.

• $88 million for the Coast Guard to design a new polar icebreaker (arctic ship).

• $448 million for constructing the Department of Homeland Security headquarters.

• $248 million for furniture at the new Homeland Security headquarters.

• $600 million to buy hybrid vehicles for federal employees.

• $400 million for the Centers for Disease Control to screen and prevent STD's.

[Sean: This is a public effort that deserves funding and shouldn't be shied away from. If the program is suspect I understand, but frankly this is stimulative by being preventative health care. This is something more imperative than any other since this is a communicable situation.]

• $1.4 billion for rural waste disposal programs.

[Sean: Rural communities are hard hit and deserve more focus for this stimulus.]

• $125 million for the Washington sewer system.

[Sean: Trust me this needs to be done is a HUGE job.]

• $150 million for Smithsonian museum facilities.

• $1 billion for the 2010 Census, which has a projected cost overrun of $3 billion.

[Sean: This is a sapte of temporary jobs that will put money in the hands of low income workers across the nation. It's better than welfare folks!]

• $75 million for "smoking cessation activities."

• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges.

[Sean: Win/Win scenario. We must improve our community colleges because most families are starting their kids their first before moving into a four year school. Technology must be up to date here to better train our kids tomorrow. Not to mention the boom to the computer firms. I would want to make sure this was to take care of outstanding contracts though before moving it totally forward.]

• $75 million for salaries of employees at the FBI.

• $25 million for tribal alcohol and substance abuse reduction.

• $500 million for flood reduction projects on the Mississippi River.

[Sean: This should be removed for another time since this needs more debate. Unless there are already projects already approved but starving for cash these projects can wait. We can't keep shoring up flood plains and letting people continually rebuild here at a huge risk.]

• $10 million to inspect canals in urban areas.

[Sean: Many of the canals are old and have many risks involved. We should check our infrastructure for safety. However, I would want to scrutinize the conditions here before moving ahead with approval. ]

• $6 billion to turn federal buildings into "green" buildings.

• $500 million for state and local fire stations.

• $650 million for wildland fire management on forest service lands.

[Sean: Like FDR's CCC, this is something that needs to be done to improve our forests as well as improve this valuable resource to the world. This brings jobs to rural areas and saves our parks for our future generations to enjoy.]

• $1.2 billion for "youth activities," including youth summer job programs.

• $88 million for renovating the headquarters of the Public Health Service.

• $412 million for CDC buildings and property.

• $500 million for building and repairing National Institutes of Health facilities in Bethesda, Maryland.

• $160 million for "paid volunteers" at the Corporation for National and Community Service.

• $5.5 million for "energy efficiency initiatives" at the Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration.

• $850 million for Amtrak.

• $100 million for reducing the hazard of lead-based paint.

[Sean: I am for this if it involves existing programs and existing procurements and these all concentrate on removal and disposal only.]

•  $75 million to construct a "security training" facility for State Department Security officers when they can be trained at existing facilities of other agencies.

• $110 million to the Farm Service Agency to upgrade computer systems.

[Sean: I am for this if it involves existing procurements pending funding.]

• $200 million in funding for the lease of alternative energy vehicles for use on military installations.