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Talking Points: What Do You Think of the 80th Annual Oscar Nominations?
Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on January 23, 2008
In my personal opinion, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences got it right this year. Not only did Juno get nominated in all the right categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Original Screenplay), but Transformers also received 3 nominations (Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects) — go Michael Bay!
The Academy also seems to have a hard on for No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood, which was expected. What wasn’t expected? How about the fact that Denzel Washington was overlooked for his performance in American Gangster, but Ruby Dee (who played his mother) earned a Best Supporting Actress nod. A welcomed surprise was Brad Bird’s nomination in the Best Original Screenplay category for Ratatouille. These nominations seem to indicate that the Academy may have finally gotten wise about what good film is. Then again, they haven’t given out the awards yet, so I will hold the solidification of that claim for later.
For now, it is time for you to do some talking about this. If you need to see the nominees, just go here: The 80th Annual Academy Award Nominations.
Talking Point: What do you think of the Academy Award nominations? Is there anyone who didn’t get nominated that deserved to? Is there anyone who did get nominated that should not be on this list?
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2 Comments
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:38 am
daniel day has that award in the bag, nobody is even close.
February 16th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Best Pic (and yes, I’ve seen them all): No Country. Blood will be honored only via best actor for Lewis to rightly reward that pic’s strength. Juno is this year’s Little Miss Sunshine and/or Sideways, wasn’t worthy of BP nomination and its too young and psuedo-hip for the Academy to vote for it. Atonement’s support seems soft absent a Best Director nomination, but might contend as the only nominal “chick flick” with the superficial Academy voters who might not look past the Jane Austen-style feelgood to the murk at the bottom of this film’s garden fountain. oOf the five Best Actress nominees I have only seen Ellen Page’s dismissable performance (hope they seat her with the chickie from Atonement and Anna Paquin from “The Piano”), but the Disease Portrayal rule plus Lifetime Achievement sympathy would seem to favor Julie Christie here, but a friend of mine who saw Marion Cotillard in La Vie En Rose raved about her performance and said she’d contend. I haven’t seen enough Supporting performances to have a good read, but I’m pulling for Hal Holbrook and Ruby Dee. Director, Anderson unexpectedly noses out the Coens. Adapted screenplay, NCFOM. Original screenplay, MC. All the technical awards it’s nominated for go to Blood. See you Oscar night!