Oscar did itself proud by awarding No Country for Old Men the big awards Sunday night: Best Screenplay, Best Director(s), Best Picture and especially Best Supporting Actor to the preternaturally excellent Javier Bardem. Few could argue with the Academy’s Best Actor choice, either: Daniel Day-Lewis for his titanic performance in There Will Blood. Though far from a perfect film, There Will Be Blood is genuinely ambitious and serious, not to mention further evidence that the young and talented Paul Thomas Anderson will certainly make a masterpiece in his career, even if he hasn’t yet.

The wise Roger Ebert wrote, for my money, the most insightful review of There Will Be Blood out there, especially as it compares to the superior No Country. Here’s a snippet:

“There Will Be Blood” is the kind of film that is easily called great. I am not sure of its greatness. It was filmed in the same area of Texas used by “No Country for Old Men,” and that is a great film, and a perfect one. But “There Will Be Blood” is not perfect, and in its imperfections (its unbending characters, its lack of women or any reflection of ordinary society, its ending, its relentlessness) we may see its reach exceeding its grasp. Which is not a dishonorable thing.

Read the rest of the review here.

And here’s a Bardem pic for Rach. (El Capataz de cargadores, no?)

Oscars & Awards | 3 Comments »

Or, should I say, the 80th Oscars. Or should I say, how Clan Murphy hopes the Oscars will pan out, seeing as how (as usual) we have very decided opinions on this year’s big pictures, and simply do not trust all those other Oscar voters to get it right—there are precedents, boys and girls! (Remember 1986 when John Barry won the Oscar for his score for Out of Africa, which was largely an update of his earlier Born Free, over Ennio Morricone’s seminal and path-breaking The Mission? Or remember the Best Picture win in 1996 for The English Patient, one of the few movies we’ve actually hated, over the Coen Brothers’ other masterpiece, Fargo?

Which leads me to this year’s Oscars and No Country for Old Men. Clan Murphy is in agreement that this movie, written, directed & edited by Joel & Ethan Coen, should win all eight categories it’s been nominated for–Best Picture, Director(s), adapted screenplay, supporting actor, cinematography. etc. In fact, in the “we wuz robbed!” category, after seeing the film twice, I can’t understand how Josh Brolin didn’t get nominated for Best Actor, especially vis-a-vis the solid-but-overrated George Clooney in Michael Clayton. (He was better in O, Brother, Where Art Thou?).

We also think 3:10 to Yuma and Zodiac, even Gone Baby Gone, were more deserving of Oscar noms than Clayton, which was, though a smart script, sort of The Insider-lite.)

Anyway, though we haven’t all seen everything up yet–don’t talk to me about Atonement, for instance, a film adapted from a novel I hated, and which has been much compared to, gag, The English Patient–here’s Clan Murphy’s in-progress list of who, among those actually nominated, we’d like to see get Oscar tonight

BEST PICTURE: No Country for Old Men
BEST DIRECTOR: Joel & Ethan Coen, No Country
BEST ACTOR:Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood
BEST ACTRESS: no opinion yet–haven’t seen enough of ‘em
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Javier Barden, No Country
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: We loved Ruby Dee in American Gangster and Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton, but we haven’t yet seen I’m Not There–friends say Cate Blanchett is amazing.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: Roger Deakins for No Country
BEST EDITING: Roderick Jaynes (the Coen Bros) for No Country–these guys have mastered the art of editing movies as tight as a drum without being in the least hurried.
BEST FOREIGN FILM: How could the rules have displaced The Diving Bell and the Butterfly?
BEST MUSIC SCORE: 3:10 TO YUMA
BEST SOUND EDITING: No Country
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: Diablo Cody for Juno
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: les freres Coen for No Country

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