Oscar Predictions: End of December

Best Picture
Atonement
Into the Wild
Juno
No Country for Old Men*
There Will be Blood

Best Director
Atonement - Joe Wright
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead - Sydney Lumet
Into the Wild - Sean Penn
No Country for Old Men - Joel and Ethan Coen*
There Will be Blood - Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Actor in a Leading Role
George Clooney - Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will be Blood*
Ryan Gosling - Lars and the Real Girl
Emile Hirsch - Into the Wild
Viggo Mortenson - Eastern Promises

Best Actress in a Leading Role
Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie - Away From Her
Marion Cotillard - La Vie En Rose
Angelina Jolie - A Mighty Heart
Ellen Page - Juno*

Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Cassey Affleck - Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men*
Philip Seymor Hoffman - Charlie Wilson's War
Hal Holbrook - Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson - Michael Clayton

Best Actress in a Supporting Role
Cate Blanchett - I'm Not There*
Ruby Dee - American Gangster
Catherine Keener - Into the Wild
Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton

Best Original Screenplay
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Juno*
Lars and the Real Girl
Michael Clayton
The Savages

Best Adapted Screenplay
Atonement
Gone Baby Gone
Into the Wild
No Country for Old Men*
There Will be Blood

Best Animated Feature
Persepolis
Ratatouille*
The Simpsons Movie

Best Foreign Feature
4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days
Days of Darkness
Katyn
The Orphanage
Persepolis*

Best Cinematography
Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford*
Into the Wild
No Country for Old Men
There Will be Blood
Zodiac

Best Editing
American Gangster
Atonement
Into the Wild
No Country for Old Men*
Sweeny Todd

Best Special Effects
The Golden Compass
Pirates of the Caribbean: At the World's End
Transformers*

Achievment in Makeup
300
Elizebeth: The Golden Age
Hairspray
Pirates of the Caribbean: At the World's End
Sweeny Todd*

Best Original Song
Enchanted
Hairspray
Into the Wild
Once*
Walk Hard

Nashville by Robert Altman

Robert Altman has made more incredible films than almost any other American director. Nashville is quite possibly the best of those films, but more importantly it shows all of Robert Altman's styles in one besutifully crafted dramatic-comedy-musical about folk and country stars who are all in Nashville for a music festival during the campaign of a non-politician running for president. Keith Carradine probably leads the ensemble of 22 and steals the show with his Oscar winning song "I'm Easy." This is a perfect piece of Americana from the most American of all directors the Master, Robert Altman

Unforgiven by Clint Eastwood

Unforgiven is not only the film that brought Clint Eastwood the director to the forefront of American cinema, and its not just a Best Picture winner. The film is a genuine masterpiece for the ages and the perfect western...the best ever made. Though there are plenty of westerns that have been made since: Unforgiven is a beautiful requiem for the western genre.

Coming Soon...

Top 10 of 2007 and Second Round Oscar Predictions

Eastern Promises - Review

David Cronenberg strikes gold for the second feature in a row. Easter Promises is the follow up to A History of Violence (2005) and Viggo Mortenson could not have been better. Naomi Watts adds the right amount of class and beauty to a gritty ugly film. As Naomi Watts closes in on one of the Russian mob's dirty little secrets things get messy for everybody, with slashed throats to quench the deepest blood lusts. Eastern Promises is one of the best films of the year

****

Three Colors Triology (Blue, White, Red) by Krzysztof Kieslowski

Krzysztof Kieslowski's Three Colors Trilogy is the pinacle of beauty within the art of cinematography. The stories are beautiful but the photography is to such a heightened point (especially in Blue and Red) that the lovely stories take a back seat to the look. Much is made of the colors being the colors of the French Tricolour flag. The colors could also be attatched to the genres of the films: Blue sits on the verge of tragedy; White is near-comedy; and, Red (probably be best mix of story and look) is nearly a romance. Kieslowski's work is masterful and demands to be seen.

Goodfellas by Martin Scorsese

Goodfellas is the most accesable of Martin Scorsese's masterpieces. It is well-acted, it is dark but it is still humorous (think of The Departed but with Joe Pesci instead of Mark Whalberg). This picture moves with frantic pacing that doesn't let up for its entire 145-minute run-time. Ray Liotta plays Henry Hill a man that we can't seem to feel sorry for though we feel his pain every step of the way whereas Robert De Niro is a crook and Pesci is just a sociopath. Martin Scorsese paints a picture of a sad life where nothing is off limits but nothing is right. It also reigns as the only gangster picture made about the every day life of the Wise Guys (Goodfellas or Foot Soliders).