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NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, THERE WILL BE BLOOD LEAD OSCAR NOMINEES

No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood each received eight Academy Award nominations Tuesday (January 22) when the contenders were announced at a pre-dawn press conference in Hollywood, California.

Many will spend the next few weeks overanalyzing the nominees, but it’s not unfair to ask how Norbit gets more nominations than Knocked Up did.

In support of the striking writers I won’t add any additional commentary. Here are the nominees for the 80th annual Academy Awards:

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
George Clooney in Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones in In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen in Eastern Promises

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Casey Affleck in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman in Charlie Wilson’s Wa
Hal Holbrook in Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson in Michael Clayton

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Cate Blanchett in Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie in Away from Her
Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose
Laura Linney in The Savages
Ellen Page in Juno

PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Cate Blanchett in I’m Not There
Ruby Dee in American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan in Atonement
Amy Ryan in Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM OF THE YEAR

Persepolis
Surf’s Up
Ratatouille

ACHIEVEMENT IN ART DIRECTION
American Gangster
Atonement
The Golden Compass
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
There Will Be Blood

ACHIEVEMENT IN CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Atonement
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

ACHIEVEMENT IN COSTUME DESIGN
Across the Universe
Atonement
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
La Vie en Rose
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

ACHIEVEMENT IN DIRECTING
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
No End in Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sicko
Taxi to the Dark Side
War/Dance

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT SUBJECT
Freeheld
La Corona (The Crown)
Salim Baba
Sari’s Mother

ACHIEVEMENT IN FILM EDITING
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Into the Wild
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM OF THE YEAR
Beaufort
The Counterfeiters
Katyn
Mongol
12

ACHIEVEMENT IN MAKEUP
La Vie en Rose
Norbit
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC WRITTEN FOR MOTION PICTURES (ORIGINAL SCORE)
Atonement
The Kite Runner 
Michael Clayton
Ratatouille
3:10 to Yuma

ACHIEVEMENT IN MUSIC WRITTEN FOR MOTION PICTURES (ORIGINAL SONG)
"Falling Slowly" from Once
"Happy Working Song" from Enchanted
"Raise It Up" from August Rush
"So Close" from Enchanted
"That’s How You Know" from Enchanted

BEST MOTION PICTURE OF THE YEAR
Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
I Met the Walrus 
Madame Tutli-Putli
Même Les Pigeons Vont au Paradis (Even Pigeons Go to Heaven) 
My Love (Moya Lyubov)
Peter & the Wolf

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
At Night
Il Supplente (The Substitute)
Le Mozart des Pickpockets
Tanghi Argentini
The Tonto Woman

ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND EDITING
The Bourne Ultimatum
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
There Will Be Blood
Transformers

ACHIEVEMENT IN SOUND MIXING
The Bourne Ultimatum
No Country for Old Men
Ratatouille
3:10 to Yuma
Transformers

ACHIEVEMENT IN VISUAL EFFECTS
The Golden Compass
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Transformers

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Atonement
Away from Her
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Juno
Lars and the Real Girl
Michael Clayton
Ratatouille
The Savages

WRAPPING UP THE OSCARS

Boring. I heard the word come out of my wife’s mouth at least a half-dozen times during the 79th annual Academy Awards ceremony (and, as I’m writing this, we’re not even done with the show.)

And, after more than 210 minutes, I tend to agree with her. While there have been some noticeable differences in this year’s telecast as compared to those of years past, there have been too many lulls, too many tributes, too much filler.

Let’s take a look at the good (the emphasis on meaningful speeches), the bad (who thought that it would be a good idea to read the most boring parts of scripts to illustrate the importance of a good script?), and the ugly (Nicole Kidman):

THE GOOD

• Lucas, Spielberg, and Coppola doing shtick prior to announcing the winners of the Best Directing Oscar; Scorsese winning the Oscar; and Spielberg saying "Mazel Tov."
• The theatre troupe  Pilobolus contorting their bodies magnificently.
• The decision to group the performance of the Dreamgirls songs. 
• The class exhibited by Supporting Actress winner Jennifer Hudson in not bitchslapping Simon Cowell, who famously said that she wasn’t talented enough to win American Idol. Guess she’ll have to make due with the Oscar. Also, the fact that Hudson’s dress won the battle of the boob. Her right breast was a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen. Her designer deserved an Oscar for Best Breast Support. 
• Jack Nicholson, still crazy after all these years. The Kojak look makes him look even more badass, if that’s even possible.
• Ellen DeGeneres proved that her easygoing style translates nicely to the big stage.
• Al Gore’s (non-) announcement that was drowned out by the band.
• Turning the costume design into a live showcase.
• The live sound effects orchestra. The sounds that they were making in time with the film was pretty cool.
• The Ennio Morricone montage. A great musician finally gets his due.
• Letting the kids read the animation nominations. Sure Jayden Smith got a bit ahead of himself, but who cares? It was an inspired idea.

THE BAD

• Reading drama-free lines of nominated scripts to prove the importance of good writing and disproving the importance of a good script in the process.
• The live sound effects orchestra. We get the point that sound effects are important. At the same time, you don’t need to bring the show to a screeching halt to prove that point.  
• The montages: I remember the foreign films montage, which was unnecessary. There was another one early on whose content I cannot remember at this point. And if you can’t remember it, it shouldn’t have taken up valuable time.  
• Celine Dion brought nothing to the Morricone tribute.  
• Jennifer Lopez. She would have ended up in the Good column, because she was wearing a beautiful dress, but then she opened her mouth and Jenny from the block showed up.  
• Did every woman have to wear a gray dress? Helen Mirren was the only one able to pull it off, and that’s likely because she was showing some excellent cleavage.  
• Al Gore has gained so much weight that the carbon monoxide emissions from his head now produce more greenhouse gasses than Norway does.  
• There has to be a better way to honor the film industry folks who passed away in the last year than the loud/quiet/loud montage. The death popularity contest is just creepy.
• Clint Eastwood stumbling and bumbling his way through the Morricone tribute and then saying that he shouldn’t have forgotten his glasses.

THE UGLY

• It might seem like we’re beating Nicole Kidman up, but if you look at her, it looks like someone already beat us to it. Or, as my wife said, she could probably play Death at this point. She wouldn’t even need makeup.
• Is Tom Cruise an alien? He never seems to age. He scares us. Not as much as Nicole Kidman does, but he scares us.  
• Penelope Cruz is a beautiful woman, and it hurts us to say this, but the bottom half of her dress looked like a hairy octopus had devoured her legs.
• Kirsten Dunst needs to get into rehab, stat. And take Reese Witherspoon with you. The Oscars are about elegance, not trailer trash.
• Have we mentioned Nicole Kidman? If someone made a horror movie in which a figure with Kidman’s face popped out of dark corners every few minutes, the pic would gross $100 million in a few weeks.

What did we miss? Tell us in the comments.

Technorati Tags: Awards, Film

LIVE BLOGGING THE OSCARS -- CANCELED

While you’re watching the Academy Award ceremony on ABC Sunday night (February 25), be sure to stop by The Blog at Guess the Gross where your hosts Kernan and Roy will be here to live blog the ceremony for you.

We’ll be here for the duration, discussing our picks, analyzing the winners, and making fun of the losers. We promise to clap loudly for all of the members of the Academy that we lost in the past year -- not just the popular ones.

And we will be here when all is said and done to wrap the evening while everyone else heads off to the Governor’s Ball.

So be there or be Sean Keeley. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, the Academy Awards live blog looks like it won’t take place this evening. One of your hosts is without power after a strong winter storm rolled through and your other host knows that this is a team effort.

We promise to wrap up the ceremony in a blog post and be sure to check in at 8:00 pm ET in case anything changes, but as of now -- 6:30 pm ET -- the live blog is canceled.

Sorry.

Enjoy the show.

UPDATE: STILL NOT HAPPENING... Sorry. Enjoy the show.

Technorati Tags: Announcements, Awards, Film

BAD NEWS FOR OSCAR

The ratings have dipped for the Oscar broadcast in each of the last two years and a new poll points to more bad trends for the Academy. A new Harris Poll asking more than 1,000 Americans who they think will win the Oscar for Best Picture found that most Americans believe Clint Eastwood’s Letters From Iwo Jima will take home the big prize.

This is a bizarre and troubling result given the fact that Iwo Jima has yet to crack $10 million dollars at the box office. That means that most of the people who took part in this poll haven’t even seen Letters From Iwo Jima pointing to an viewer apathy that really could put a dent in Oscar watching.
Of course the more damning evidence of viewer apathy comes from the fact that Letters From Iwo Jima actually finished third in the poll. Third behind I don’t know and none of the above. It breaks down like this..

I don’t know 21%
None of the Nominees 20 %
Letters From Iwo Jima 19%
The Departed and Little Miss Sunshine 13%
The Queen 8%
Babel 6%

The numbers come to favor The Departed amongst voters who say they are likely to tune in, which is in line with the box office attention each of the nominated films have received, but that does little to alleviate what is a growing trend of apathy toward the biggest awards show in the industry.

Christopher Kelly, writing in the Fort Worth Star Telegram makes an interesting point that I think illustrates why potential viewers are apathetic. In an article titled "Oscar Voters Can’t Hear Applause?", Kelly talks about the rising number of popular films that were worthy Oscar nominations but were shoved aside by a prevailing attitude that indie and edgy are better than mainstream and popular.

The Pursuit of Happyness, The Devil Wears Prada, Borat, and Casino Royale are all great examples of popular films that were worthy of big category consideration but never gained any kind of buzz during the long run up to the nominations. Dreamgirls, the ultimate in populist appeal seemed to have locked a nomination and somehow got bumped. This is likely attributable to Kelly’s point about the new academy’s favoring of edgy, low budget indies.

Of course, the Oscars are not about mass appeal, but about the best pictures; however, from a purely business standpoint if the Academy chooses its idea of integrity over mass appeal, it will have to deal with audiences that continue to tune it out.

Technorati Tags: Awards, Film

THE OSCARS: PICKING THE BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM WINNER

For those who spend the week before the Academy Awards working on their Oscar pools, certain categories are usually locks while others are crapshoots, even for those who see hundreds of movies every year.

Traditionally, one of the most difficult categories to pick is that of Best Live Action Short Film. Hardcore pool junkies have an opportunity to handicap the field this year via iTunes. The nominees are available for purchase for $1.99 each.

And if you’re looking for the sure thing, check out West Bank Story, a take on West Side Story that pits the Jews against the Arabs and their rival falafel stands.

The film was made to fulfill the requirements of a graduate film school thesis and it far surpasses any expectations. It is funny, clever, and well-acted. The musical numbers are well-crafted and well-performed, and the 20-minute running time is ideal.

When the Academy presents the Oscar to West Bank Story Sunday night, remember who told you about it first.

Technorati Tags: Awards, Film