Reel News...2012 Academy Award Results

 

Best Picture

"The Artist" Thomas Langmann, Producer

"The Descendants" Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers

"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" Scott Rudin, Producer

"The Help" Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers

"Hugo" Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Producers

"Midnight in Paris" Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Producers

"Moneyball" Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, Producers

"The Tree of Life" Nominees to be determined

"War Horse" Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers

Directing

"The Artist" Michel Hazanavicius

"The Descendants" Alexander Payne

"Hugo" Martin Scorsese

"Midnight in Paris" Woody Allen

"The Tree of Life" Terrence Malick

Useless Clatter...My Oscar Guesses 2.0- The Dilemma of The Artist

    Why The Artist is making this year so difficult.

       I know this is totally illegal but like I said before I can't stand having to publicly make these predictions. Last week I finally posted my predictions for the Oscars but that isn't enough to get me through til Sunday. As much as I want to think The Descendants is most deserving, the whole world seems set on The Artist for Best Picture. The way I see it, you have two options when making any sort of prediction. One, you do your research, find out what most people are saying and go with that. Its a conservative approach but in the end, you'll probably get most picks right. The second option then is to go with the dark horses.  Picking The Tree of Life for Best Picture, is quite rebellious, but maybe too extreme. In this case where the obvious front runner is The Artist, anything besides that would work.

Useless Clatter...My Oscar Guesses

With the Oscars approaching in less than two weeks, I finally realized that I should get around to posting my predictions because after next Sunday, they really won't matter.  I tend to dislike making predictions of any sort solely for the fear of being wrong.  Of course every year I fill out a March Madness bracket for the NCAA basketball tournament, [which I will inevitably be doing within the next few weeks] but I cannot recall the last time I actually found the courage to total up my losses after the championship game.  In the case of the Academy Awards, the rumors and gossip in the weeks [or months at this point] heading up to that Sunday in February seems just as important as the actually awards ceremony.  Being a movie fanatic as well as movie blogger, it seems that this is post is something of a requirement.  Nevertheless, Oscar predictions have become an important part of today's movie culture and if anything, it promotes  further discussion and engagement with movies  enabling me to start up something like FILMclatter.
+The bold selection indicates my primary prediction and anything underlined is a secondary guess

Best Picture

"The Artist" Thomas Langmann, Producer

"The Descendants" Jim Burke, Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor, Producers

"Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" Scott Rudin, Producer

"The Help" Brunson Green, Chris Columbus and Michael Barnathan, Producers

"Hugo" Graham King and Martin Scorsese, Producers

"Midnight in Paris" Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum, Producers

"Moneyball" Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz and Brad Pitt, Producers

"The Tree of Life" Nominees to be determined

"War Horse" Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy, Producers

Why See This...Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy [2011]

      I read about one blogger’s experience of going to see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and how showing up a few minutes late cost him dearly.  On screen, he didn’t miss anything important arriving before the beginning credits finished, but what he missed was the cheat sheet.  This particular theater gave its Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy viewers info packets to look over before the movie began.  It included keywords, character descriptions and important, unexplained spy slang (known on Wikipedia as “Tradecraft jargon”).  Where I went to see the movie, we were not offered that kind of luxury, but then again, I’m not sure how much it would have helped anyways. 

      Before I go any further, I would like to direct your eyes to the picture below, because this, more than anything can help describe what this movie is all about.  Its shows the most important part of the movie-

Why See This...Young Adult [2011]

      I heard an argument once that all Jason Reitman films were the same.  It went like this- ‘The movie starts out funny, and then there’s a sad/serious part in the middle and then it goes back to being funny at the end.  All while doing so, the movie tries to make a vague statement about life that no one can really relate to unless of course you’re 16 and pregnant, an advertiser for a cigarette company or a man who has no friends and lives on an airplane.’  It’s the same argument used against John Wayne who rarely appeared on screen without spurs and a cowboy hat.  Both of these arguments are valid, except for that they are used as criticism.

      In many ways, Young Adult is a combination of Reitman's previous two movies, Up in the Air (2009) and Juno (2007), so I can see where the argument begins.  Like Up in the Air’s Ryan Bingham, the main character, Mavis Gray, played brilliantly by Charlize Theron, is a middle-aged American whose solitary way of living seems to clash with the regular Joes of society that she so actively tries to avoid.  And like Juno, Diablo Cody wrote the screenplay.  As a result the awkwardly comical energy of Juno is retained in Young Adult.