My Night at the Movies

So, I saw Night at the Museum tonight, but that wasn't the best part (well, it wasn't that hard to beat quite frankly). The best part was at the end when I was waiting in the lobby for my friend and another movie session had finished and people were walking out I overheard one woman tell her friend "I mean, I know she was a war photographer and all but I wish she'd show at least one emotion. Maybe two." I took me a second realise she must have been talking about Jennifer Connolly in filthy lying piece of scum Blood Diamond.

Night at the Museum? Hmm. Nowhere near as fun as I thought it would be. In fact, some of it was a downright chore to sit through. It only got exciting in the last 30 minutes or so. The effects were pretty great though. But, it's essentially a PG Ben Stiller movie with big effects. So that means people get beaten, bitten, span on, kicked in the groin, slapped and covered in various fluids all to "hilarious" effect. Hmmm. Mickey Rooney was "a weirdee". Like... huh? Oh well At least it wasn't lying scum bag: the movie Blood Diamond.

Filthy Scummy Liars!

Being an awards watcher like a lot of you, it is my duty to call "Bullshit!" on something. The image to the left is an ad for Blood Diamond that I cut out of the Herald Sun today. The first time I just glanced over the page I thought it was an ad for The Departed, what with the Leo-ness and the "BEST MOVIE OF 2006" quote to the side (from such an illustrious critic as Nelson Aspen - LOL!). My eyes quickly moved on to an ad for Happy Feet that was situated below (David Stratton's five star review still makes me happy). But then I noticed the title of the Leo ad above and that it was for Blood Diamond.

Fancy my surprise when I actually looked at the entire ad that they are down right lying on their promotional ads! They're filthy LIARS. Incase you can't notice anything that's not right here is a blown up version of the bit where it says what awards it won. Notice anything?


Still nothin'? Okay, check out the winners of the 2006 National Board of Review. Now do you see it?

WINNER
BEST PICTURE
NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW

Filthy scummy liars! Sure, it placed on their Top 10 but the only prize it WON was the Supporting Actor (Djimon Hounsou). I tellsya... I'm not gonna see this movie now. It's blatant false advertising. I wasn't intending on seeing it until DVD, but I'll skip it (especially if they put it on the box!) because it's wrong to decieve people like that. For shame Warner Bros, FOR SHAME!!

NBR - WTF?

I haven't read anybody else's opinions on the NBR yet, so sorry if this is repetition to all you Oscar prognasticators. The National Board of Review are sort of notorious for going off on their own weird tangents. It's something that always makes them at least interesting and this year was no different. No Dreamgirls or The Queen (two films that seem like Oscar sure bets), yet there is The Devil Wears Prada (thankfully, at least one awards body has recognised it, next up HFPA). They continue to adore Edward Zwick. They awarded him Best Director for his culture clash slash history vulture film The Last Samurai and now placed his Blood Diamond (a movie whose buzz has died about so quickly it was as if it was a character in a Texas Chainsaw Massacre film). They also liked History Boys, but not Little Children.

But the big story to come out of the NBR is, quite scarily, they really fuckin' loved Clint's 1-2 punch of WWII films. Not only did Letters from Iwo Jima win their Best Film prize (a contest I thought it was inneligable in because it's in Japanese and the NBR don't allow foreign language films for Best Picture, like the HFPA). They also rewarded Flags of our Fathers with a spot on their top 10. I was not a fan of that movie, but I suppose the best thing to come out of this is that perhaps voters will get confused and it'll knock each of them out of the ring... or they'll both show up and the awards will be ridiculous.

Anyway. Let's see how I went.

NBR TOP 10
Winner: Letters From Iwo Jima

Babel
Blood Diamond
The Departed
The Devil Wears Prada
Flags of our Fathers
The History Boys
Little Miss Sunshine
Notes on a Scandal
The Painted Veil

I got 4/10 here. LOL! I predicted Babel, The Departed, Notes on a Scandal (the one I predicted to win) and The Painted Veil. The rest of my predicted top 10 were Children of Men, Dreamgirls, Little Children, A Prairie Home Companion, The Queen and United 93. Really surprising there.

BEST DIRECTOR
Martin Scorsese, The Departed

I predicted this. He's gonna win the Oscar surely.

BEST ACTOR
Forest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

I predicted this. Whitaker may very well become the critics' choice. We'll see.

BEST ACTRESS
Helen Mirren, The Queen

I predicted this one too (didn't everybody?)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond

Again, they really like Ed Zwick's movies for whatever reason (they're usually not good). I predicted Eddie Murphy to take it for Dreamgirls

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Catherine O'Hara, For Your Consideration

I keep pondering who will be this year's Amy Adams or Catherine Keener. Two people who weren't serious contenders before the awards season, but who became the power hitters with the critics. Thing is, apparently For Your Consideration is bad so O'Hara has that against her. But... you never know. Maybe critics will fall for O'Hara. I predicted Cate Blanchett for her annual onslaught of films.

BEST FOREIGN FILM
Volver

Yeah, I predicted this. Strangely, I wavered for a bit and thought of predicting The Lives of Others, a film that didn't even show up on their Top 5 Foreign list (Pan's Labyrinth, Curse of Golden Flower, Days of Glory and Water made up the rest). I predicted Volver, Pan's and Zhang Yimou's other film Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles to place alongside The Lives of Others and, er, Letters from Iwo Jima.

BEST DOCUMENTARY
An Inconvenient Truth

Yeah, this seemed sorta predictable. Their top 5 were Truth, Shut Up & Sing, Iraq in Fragments, Word Play and 51 Birch Street. I so wanna see the Dixie Chicks at the Oscars so I hope Shut Up & Sing makes the Oscar list.

BEST ANIMATED FILM
Cars

I predicted Happy Feet.

BEST ENSEMBLE CAST
The Departed

I was gonna say this but then I thought they'd spread the wealth more and give it to Bobby.

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson

*sigh* how is this even remotely a "breakthrough"? Maybe he's a breakthrough to old fogie voters? I predicted Sasha Baron Cohen.

BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls and Rinko Kikuchi, Babel
I predicted Hudson, so I score this point. I still don't know which of the Babel women will be Oscar nommed. Kikuchi or Barraza? Hmm...

BEST DIRECTORIAL DEBUT
Jason Reitman, Thank You For Smoking

Indicative of their "spread the wealth" mentality, the directors of Little Miss Sunshine didn't win this prize despite having a film in their top 10. I predicted, however, Ryan Fleck's directing of Half Nelson (which they gave a Breakthrough prize to, but for Ryan Gosling. Blah)

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Zach Helm, Stranger than Fiction

I predicted Almodovar for Volver. I thought this film's screenplay just sounded too good to ignore but the box office was middling and reviews weren't all that so I assumed it'd be thrown under the rug. Hmmm... we'll see where it goes from here.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Ron Nyswaner, The Painted Veil

I keep wanting to think that The Painted Veil will make a big push towards Oscar and get nominated in big categories including Best Picture, but now with Iwo Jima getting "it's a lock" status from several journos, it seems that there is only one spot vacant and that will likely go to Little Miss Sunshine. However, if that doesn't start showing off like a pre-pubescent beauty pageant queen, then it might miss the big boat altogether. For this category, incidentally, I predicted Todd Field for Little Children.

TOP 10 INDEPENDENT FILMS
Akeelah and the Bee
Bobby
Catch a Fire
Copying Beethoven
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Half Nelson
The Illusionist
Lonesome Jim
Sherrybaby
10 Items or Less
Thank You For Smoking

This is their ridiculous list of other movies they decided to "honour" because they like looking as if they reward every studio in town.

Their Career Achievement Award went to Eli Wallach. He's probably best known for roles in the Godfather trilogy and... er... looking at his filmography doesn't really say much. He's in The Holiday, out next week, though!

Their Producer's Award went to Irwin Winkler, quite humourously. The Billy Wilder award went to Jonathan Demme, which is strange cause the only movie he directed this year was Heart of Gold, a Neil Young concert movie.

Lastly the Freedom of Expression award went to Deepa Mehta's Water and Oliver Stone's World Trade Center. I woulda though United 93 would have been a better candidate for this prize over WTC, but... oh well. Dem wacky NBR like to fool around with us.

And... that's all for now cause I'm hungry.

THE AWARDS SEASON HAS BEGUN!!!