Everything Matters - 2/19/09 - Oscars Edition - Part 4

Everything Matters – 2/19/09 – Academy Awards Edition – Part 4

CINEMATOGRAPHY – the nominees are Changeling, The CC of BB,
The Dark Knight, The Reader, Slumdog Millionaire.
Changeling is a very strange. It’s a glamour shot of a movie; Angelina going
all serious as a distraught mother in 1920 L.A. playing off her 2009 role as the
together Mom married to a man who ages backwards. But the movie doesn’t know
what it wants to be. is it about her and her missing son, replaced by an imposter?
Is it a mental institutional horror story, Roaring Twenties Girl Interrupted?, or is it a serial-murder mystery set in the deserts outside what’s going to become Los Angeles?
None of the movies it wants to be is satisfying. And the whole is weaker than the sum
of its parts. Most people on leaving just wonder why it’s not THE Changeling?
But that sounds like some weird M. Night Shamalayan movie. Hmm, might’ve been better. Until the ending. No Oscar for this. But OctoMom Nadya Suleman will be rooting for this one.
The CC of BB will also not win yet another Oscar. It looked pretty enough but
not nearly as pretty as Brad. The director said the same thing to Cate Blanchett
when she asked for better light.
The Dark Knight – somebody had to keep the camera in focus when the
Batmobile goes shooting through Gotham. Good job, focus puller, but not
Oscar-worthy.
The Reader – Nazi porn with an almost-always-nude Kate Winslet braving the colorlessness of postwar Germany. The whole movie is done in grey scale.
So many shades of grey. Or gray. Doesn’t matter, this wasn’t exactly
Lawrencce of Arabia. Not a chance.
And the Oscar goes to – Slumdog Millionaire. More colors than the 256 million
on Photoshop. Now that’s cinematography! Jai Ho!

ART DIRECTION – the nominees are Changeling, The CC of BB,
The Dark Knight, The Duchess, Revolutionary Road.
Changeling had to make present-day Los Angeles look like 1920s Los Angeles.
So they went to East L.A. Not a winner.
The CC of BB might win this. They had an old TV that they watched the Beatles
on Ed Sullivan. They borrowed it from Pee-Wee Herman’s old set. Maybe.
The Dark Knight could be the sleeper. As Stevie Wonder might say, “Gotham City;
just like I pictured it.” Maybe plus.
The Duchess might win if they don’t win the Oscar for Best Costume. If they don’t
win one of these, they might not make effete period pieces. Possible.
And
Revolutionary Road with all those 1950s touches. Again, Pee-Wee Herman’s old s
et could’ve supplied everything for this film. Give the Oscar to Paul Reubens.
I say Revolutionary Road gets the Oscar. It didn’t do any box-office, nobody saw it,
but people think it must’ve been real good.

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM – the nominees are Bolt, Kung Fu Panda, and WALL-E.
Are we kidding? Kung Fu Panda is something on the menu in Beijing.
Bolt is the Wanted of animated films – What the fuck was Bolt?!
And the winner is, again, are we kidding, WALL-E.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY – the nominees are Courtney Hunt/Frozen River,
Mike Leigh/Happy-Go-Lucky, Martin McDonagh/In Bruges, Dustin lance Black/Milk, and Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon and Pete Docter/WALL-E.
Let’s face it, it’s between the heroic gay martyr, MILK, and WALL-E, the gay little machine in the future. You don’t think he’s gay? WALL-E’s favorite film is the
musical Hello Dolly, starring gay-world icon Barbra Streisand. Imagine if WALL-E
had found a VHS copy of Yentl? Now that’s a movie I want to see!
Milk will win because it will not win so many others and the Penn was brilliant but he won’t win and the guy’s dead and his life and his story matter. And it should.