Go get ‘em, Jon!

The Academy Awards are this weekend. As a non-gay male I am required by the rules of masculinity to not care. As a big fan of Jon Stewart and as Captain McJudgy, however, I’m stoked. So sorry, Y chromosome, that’s two against one. Maybe I’ll tear open a beer can with my teeth later to compensate. Or something.

Anyway, keep reading for a brief discussion of the major awards, along with a few additional superlatives that don’t get covered by Oscar.

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Academy Awards:

Best Picture
I’ve seen two of the five nominees: Crash and Brokeback Mountain. Both were excellent and socially pertinent. Both were expertly crafted and executed. Although I personally enjoyed Crash more and identify with its message more specifically (its message, by the way, has little to do with racism), Brokeback is the sort of moment-defining film that only comes along once or twice a generation. It deserves to win for that reason.

Best Director
Same batch of movies. While I’m confident that Brokeback Mountain deserves to win the Best Picture category due to its cultural importance even though I didn’t see the other three films, I can’t make the same assumption here. I think Haggis did a better job than Lee anyway, so just between those two I would vote for Crash.

Best Actor
This seems like Capote’s best chance for a major award. Philip Seymour Hoffman’s role would have been more demanding than Heath Ledger’s. Taking into account the Academy’s tendency to reward careers and the fact that Hoffman has been around longer, it seems a fairly easy choice, assuming Capote was as good as I’ve heard.

Best Actress
This seems like a two-girl race, between Reese Witherspoon for Walk the Line and Felicity Huffman for Transamerica. The question is, will all the attention heaped on Brokeback and Capote hurt or help Huffman’s chances?

Best Supporting Actor
I expect Paul Giamatti will be rewarded for more than one movie here.

Best Supporting Actress
Michelle Williams was wonderful in Brokeback, but also fairly limited. Rachel Weisz was realistic in The Constant Gardener, but I’m not sure the part is really Oscar-worthy. Might this be the place for an upset? Catherine Keener of Capote has had a stellar year, and Junebug is exactly the sort of film it seems the Academy likes to reward every now and then just to keep everyone on their toes, so I’d say Amy Adams has a shot, too.

Best Cinematography
I haven’t seen Memoirs of a Geisha or Good Night, and Good Luck. The best shots in Batman were cgi, so it gets tossed out. Brokeback was very, very good, but I have to award The New World, which made the most with less. The director's choice of subjects was extremely disappointing, but the cinematography of those subjects was excellent.

Best Adapted Screenplay
I would have said The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe here, but it’s not a nominee. As it is I expect Brokeback will win this as well.

Best Original Screenplay
Crash and Syriana seem too heavy-handed. Match Point was interesting and kept me on my toes, but seems less than Oscar material. The Squid and the Whale could pull the indie vote like Junebug might for Best Supporting Actress, but I think this will be Good Night, and Good Luck’s best chance for a win.


Dan’s Superlatives:

Best Comedy
I laughed out loud the most for The 40 Year Old Virgin and Wedding Crashers, but laughed more on the second viewings of Waiting and The Arisocrats. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was more fun than funny. I’m almost certainly forgetting a lot of movies here, because we see many comedies, but at this point I’ll stick with my summer review and say Wedding Crashers was the best of the year.

Best Action/Adventure Movie
Star Wars III was a big step up from I and II, but there were better movies this year. King Kong was acceptable, but again, there were better movies out there. Batman was forgettable. War of the Worlds never did figure itself out. Kingdom of Heaven was held back by Orlando Bloom. Harry Potter ranks better than any of those above, but was a minor step down from the previous installment. Serenity was excellent, though fanboyish. Sin City deserves a lot of credit for doing something unique and interesting and ought to be rewarded for that, but overall I am too pleased with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to say anything else. Here’s to five more great Narnia flicks!

Worst Movie
Last and certainly least come the two biggest piles of crap from the past year. Sahara is predictable, clichéd and unspeakably contrived. It is horribly, horribly bad. But at least it had Steve Zahn cracking wise to keep me amused. The Dukes of Hazzard had no such thing going for it. It was nothing but an excuse for redneck NASCAR masturbation. It was not exciting. It was not funny. It was not even sexy. It was certainly not cool. In fact, Dukes was so unaware of its own dreadfulness that it had the audacity to be annoyingly self-congratulatory, to boot. Short of having small children sneak into theaters to physically stab moviegoers in the neck, I cannot think of a way Hollywood could insult its audience more.

Tags: entertainment