The Oscars are only a week away and I´m starting a countdown to the Oscars here at Zombie Room. I will be writing about most (the most interesting ones that is) of the films and obviously telling you my opinions on who the winners should be etc. I will also be talking about the biggest oversights of the Academy this year and of course giving my point of view on the hottest topics surrounding the Oscars. It is obvious that this year the the buzz is on Heath Ledger´s interpretation of Joker in The Dark Knight and also the one-on-one battle between The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire. And also will Kate Winslet get her Oscar? So here… we… go…
May I just start by saying that The Wrestler, with only two nominations, is the most undervalued film in the whole competition this year. Mickey Rourke does the best leading role of the year and he will definitely win. If I could have my way, I would have nominated it also for Best Picture, Best Directing, and most importantly Original song for Bruce Springsteens song The Wrestler. I absolutely love that song and I think it is almost a crime that the Academy discarded it totally, especially when they gave two nominations for Slumdog Millionaire. So I feel like there would have been room for it anyway. But let´s face it, the Academy has a pretty bad track record in this category, and by that I mean they have a unique ability to pick the crappiest songs from the past year and just slap them with a nomination. Don´t get me wrong, I think the soundtrack from Slumdog Millionaire is absolutely brilliant (and Oscar worthy), but if you look at some of the past nomination (or wins for that matter) you will find some messed up songs. Of course there there are exceptions like last year when the surprise winner was “Falling Slowly” from Once. The song wasn´t anything that special (very good but not great), but the film was a small budget production, the kind that don´t usually get the Academy´s attention.
Then we have WALL-E, which could have easily been the best animation feature in the history of animation, if they just would have had the courage to the tell the story with only the machines. I do think that WALL-E is definitely the Best animated feature of the year, but it would have been perfect if they wouldn´t have added the people in it. Just imagine a movie with no real dialogue and the most adorable characters known to man. Now that would have been the movie sensation of the decade. WALL-E is nominated for 6 Oscars in total (which is allot for a animation), Best animated feature film, Original score, Original song – “Down to Earth”, Sound editing, Sound mixing and Original screenplay. It will probably win Best animated feature and Original song (and maybe even the script). I really like Down to Earth, but I also think that Slumdog Millionaire´s soundtrack is off the hook!
The Best original screenplay is also quite interesting this year, because it is almost impossible to guess who will win. The nominees are Frozen River (written by Courtney Hunt), Happy-Go-Lucky (written by Mike Leigh), In Bruges (written by Martin McDonagh), Milk (written by Dustin Lance Black) and of course WALL-E (screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter). For me the real surpriser of the year is definitely In Bruges. It is a brilliant film written and directed by Martin McDonagh. Also Happy-Go-Lucky is yet again a wonderful film from the great Mike Leigh, but I wouldn´t say it has the best screenplay of the year. I just saw Milk yesterday and it was very good, all though a bit too melodramatic and it was also the most mainstream film from Gus Van Sant to date, but I really liked the message and again the writing was good, but not the best of the year. The only film I haven´t seen is Frozen River, so I don´t have an opinion on that yet. So the battle (at least in my opinion) should be between In Bruges and WALL-E (I´m guessing the WALL-E will win…).
Ok, so that´s it for today but stay tuned, because I still have allot to say on the subject.
Later!
Essi Suomela
