Oscars 2009

I used to watching the multi-hour Oscar presentations, but they are so dragged out and so many damn commercials, that I gave up. Now I just go to CNN at 11 pm and see who won. I usually make predictions, this year I entered a contest at Entertainment Weekly to win a 44 inch plasma HD tv. Needless to say, no tv is coming to my home.

So hear are my picks, let's start with the ones I got right.

Best Actress: Kate Winslet in The Reader. I had a good feeling that this was Winslet's year, one of our best actresses who has given a ton of great performances. I did not see anybody else who was nominated that I thought would beat her.

Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. This was a no brainer, momentum has been building for a while that he would win, combined with the backlash that The Dark Knight was not nominated for Best Picture, it was an easy call.

Best Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz in Vicky Christina Barcelonia. Woody Allen has a great track record in his films for getting Oscar winning performances out of his players. Michael Caine, Diane Wiest, Mia Scorvino, they have all won Oscars in Allen films. Cruz had been getting a lot of positive feedback on her performance and had the momentum going into this, plus a field where Streep and Tomi already had Oscar wins (Tomi will continue to get nominated and lose to make up for winning it for My Cousin Vinny) and the rest will have other opportunities.

Animated Feature: Wall-E. Some folk thought that this should have been a best picture pick, I thought it was very good, and Kung Fu Panda was also very good. This has been a great category as there are so many strong animated features out there, and I saw 2 out of the 3 nominated movies while I only saw one of the Best Picture nominees.

Now for the ones I got wrong.

Best Picture: My pick Milk Winner Slumdog Millionaire. I thought that the Brokeback Mountain backlash (I thought Crash deserved the win and was far better than Brokeback Mountain) would bring Milk the victory, but Slumdog Millionaire got a lot of positive momentum riding it to victory. The only picture I got to see of those nominated was The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, was I thought was over rated, way too long, and moved in slow motion. Everyone in this film talked slow, moved slow, and the WWII battle scene was the slowest moving I ever saw.

Best Director: My pick Gus Van Sant for Milk. Winner Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire. Usually best director goes to the director of the Best Picture winner, I got it wrong.

Best Actor: My pick Brad Pitt for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Winner Sean Penn for Milk. So why did I pick Brad Pitt when I thought that movie sucked. There was so much talk about how great this movie was, that I thought Pitt would get it. Bad choice, should have stuck with my gut reaction. Of course, Out of Africa won for Best Picture, and I did not like that at all, but compared to Benjamin Button it is a masterpiece. I also thought that Penn and Mickey Rouke would split the voters and Pitt would slip in there. Why I wish I was right, I am glad Penn won.

As for the other categories, I don't really care about them. Screenplays, I guess I could have picked a winner but I feel the director is the one who makes the film, lots of screenplays were saved by great directors. Best song, none I hear on the radio, so who cares.

One last thought, lots of folk were mad that The Dark Knight did not get a Best Picture nod. I actually thought Iron Man was a better made film. The end piece with Harvey Dent turning into Two-Face cluttered up the film and wasted a great Batman villain. Iron Man was very well done and was almost a prefect film in laying out the origin of a hero.