quel surprise

"The academy has long been accused of a provincialism woven with leaden taste, but its members proved this year that they will vote for what they perceive to be great work, regardless of its lineage or commercial impact." A.O. Scott, New York Times


Well, it was an interesting show …. Oscar seems to be moving a little out of the American mainstream—by becoming increasingly more international (or at least less "provincial")—and that may account in some part for the low ratings received by the show (the lowest since 1953). Perhaps fewer & fewer of us are watching the Oscars because it is rewarding films fewer & fewer of us want to see. Many of the winners were non-American. Indeed, for the first time since 1964, all the acting awards went to non-Americans: Daniel Day-Lewis from Ireland; Tilda Swinton from Scotland (I think, or is that England); Marion Cotillard (quel surprise!) from France; and Javier Bardem from Spain. Situated in New York—and like Woody Allen before them—the Coen Bros. too, I’m sure, see themselves as firmly outside the Hollywood mainstream—indeed, they looked a little embarrassed to be there. That their relatively daring film No Country for Old Men is the face of new Hollywood is a delicious irony to be savoured by hardcore film buffs and critics who have despaired of the Oscars or long ago written them off as little more than a crass commercial for "the industry." But in the words of David Carr, also writing in the New York Times, The Oscars are now in danger of becoming a way for industry types to demonstrate refinement and cultural ambition that doesn’t yield an economic dividend for the companies that finance them. It’s the kind of good taste that could leave a bad taste if they don’t watch out.

Music’s biggest month

If ever there was an exciting month for music, February would be it. Where do I begin? The 50th Annual Grammy Awards, East Coast Music Awards, and the Academy Awards. Starting with the Grammys, (Music’s biggest night), this has become such a phenomenal event, watched by millions all over the world. Always creating the most buzz are the performances – it’s all about the performances – and this year’s opener did not disappoint. With the magic of technology, who could have imagined Alicia Keys singing a duet with Frank Sinatra? Another performance which really was quite memorable for me wasa Turner’s and Beyonce’s rendition of “Proud Mary” – two absolute goddesses of Soul/R&B, proving to the world once again, that at any age, when you’ve got it, flaunt it! And of course, there was the much talked about, much-anticipated performance of British singer Amy Winehouse, who performed via satellite from London. Despite her recent publicized troubles, she walked away with five Grammys, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year. In contrast, however, the not-so-obvious was wonderfully highlighted this year, when Herbie Hancock walked away with Album of the Year for his River: The Joni Letters. This certainly was one of the biggest surprises and upsets of the evening, over the much-favored Graduation by Kanye West.

And now for something completely different on this side of the border. Fredericton, New Brunswick hosted the 20th Annual East Coast Music Awards. This four-day extravaganza of multi-genre musical performances, conference events and workshops, honoured the best in music from the Atlantic region. Hats off to 6-time winner, Halifax band Joel Plaskett Emergency, as well as double award winners Dave Gunning, the Rankin Family, Jamie Sparks and Rose Cousins. If you are not too familiar with any of these names, then check out CBC television on March 2nd at 7:00 p.m.: Steven Page of Barenaked Ladies will host a one-hour special featuring the very best musical performances from the Festival. Certainly, this will be a celebration of east coast Canadian music.

Finally, on Oscar night, it will be all about the movies, but music will feature prominently, even for a short while in the best Music (Score) category. Music, as we all know, plays such a vital and integral part of the film, as it is powerful enough to heighten the drama, create relief, or describe the depths of despair. Who could forget the sweet sounds of the balalaika in “Lara’s theme” from Dr. Zhivago, or the vast sweeping landscape of Tara in Gone With the Wind? It doesn’t have to be a musical theme to be effective. What about those memorable leit-motivs, like Jaws coming in for the kill, or the screeching repetitive rhythmic pattern in Psycho? These great moments are forever etched in our memory. Interestingly, nominees for best Music (Score) include an animated film, Ratatouille, as well as four other very different films: Atonement, The Kite Runner, Micheal Clayton and 3:10 to Yuma. The fact that these scores have been short-listed, makes them all winners in my mind. So, if you would like to hear what all the buzz and excitement is about, then look for upcoming Music displays, and let yourself be the critic!

2008 Academy Award Predictions: Part 1

The Oscars are going to happen!

Was it ever likely that Hollywood, which lost a reported 1 billion dollars over the course of the writers strike, would forego its biggest collective advertisement for itself in favour of the ungainly sight of a televised press conference? The tentative agreement reached on Saturday has spared us this (unlike with the Golden Globes) or a scaled-down version of it usual over-the-top extravaganza. And who would wish to miss that!

As with last year’s nominees, this year’s batch is a diverse blend of somewhat bleak, somewhat redemptive critical hits with a few box office smashes scattered amongst them. Usually, Oscar-nominated films have only the most casual relationship with quality, but this year both There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men were nos.1 & 3 on Indie Wire’s authoritative year-end poll of North American film critics (http://www.indiewire.com/critics2007/). Each also came in at nos. 1 & 2 in a similar poll conducted by Film Comment (http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/poll/2007pollcritics.html). And both films lead the Oscar field with a surprising (to me at least) eight nominations each. This is a good sign. But since they are both extremely dark, unapologetically weird, and watch-through-your-fingers violent—at least by Academy standards—it’s possible they may end up splitting the vote for Best Picture, allowing the one conventional, feel-good contender, Juno,to sneak up and win the big category.

What follows is my completely objective, totally unbiased prognosis for what is likely to unfold on Oscar night:

Best Picture:
The nominees: “Atonement,” “Michael Clayton,” “No Country for Old Men,” “There Will Be Blood,” “Juno”

Atonement won the Golden Globe award for Best Drama but its musty, old-fashioned Englishness seems somewhat at odds with the spirit of contemporary Hollywood. And, as with last year’s Golden Globe winner, Babel,this is not necessarily an indication of how the Academy will vote. Also, no film has won Best Picture without a single lead actor / lead actress / director nomination. The ‘70s-style paranoia-thriller “Michael Clayton” is good, but there’s not much buzz behind it, and it feels somewhat anonymous alongside the contemporary, in-your-face immediacy of There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men. I predict victory for No Country for Old Men,the slightly less eccentric of the duo, though I’m tempted to go for the dark horse, Juno,which is this year’s Little Miss Sunshine,but which probably won’t win because it lacks the requisite Oscar-worthy ‘gravitas’. But then the Academy may want to select a resolutely upbeat crowd pleaser after last year’s downer, The Departed,so it’s a tough call …

Conventional Wisdom: Atonement
Dark Horse: Juno
What Deserves to Win: No Country for Old Men … or There Will Be Blood
What Will Win: No Country for Old Men

Best Actor
The nominees: George Clooney (“Michael Clayton”), Daniel Day-Lewis (“There Will Be Blood”), Johnny Depp (“Sweeny Todd”), Tommy Lee Jones (“In the Valley of Elah”), Viggo Mortensen (“Eastern Promises”)

The smart money is on Daniel Day-Lewis, here. The Academy likes to reward actors who change their physical appearance and are seen to be A-C-T-I-N-G in the most theatrical, Lionel Barrymore sense of the word. And while this truism adheres to at least three of this year’s nominees (including Depp & Mortensen), it is Daniel Day-Lewis who supplies the necessary gravitas as the larger-than-life American oil tycoon in There Will Be Blood. George Clooney provides a characteristically intelligent performance in Michael Clayton,but he remains, well … George Clooney. (We should all be so lucky!) Johnny Depp has turned out several form-shifting performances over the years and will be recognized with an Oscar someday, but not yet. Tommy Lee Jones is widely respected, but In the Valley of Elah died at the box office. And with the overrated Eastern Promises,Viggo Mortensen is probably just happy to be nominated. This year it’s all about Daniel Day-Lewis.

Conventional Wisdom: Daniel Day-Lewis (“There Will Be Blood”)
Dark Horse: Johnny Depp (“Sweeny Todd”)
Who Deserves to Win: Daniel Day-Lewis (“There Will Be Blood”)
Who Will Win: Daniel Day-Lewis (“There Will Be Blood”)

Best Actress
The nominees: Cate Blanchett (“Elizabeth: The Golden Age”), Julie Christie (“Away From Her”), Marion Cotillard (“La Vie en Rose”), Ellen Page (“Juno”), Laura Linney (“The Savages”)

It’s a lock: Julie Christie. These awards are often as much given for a career’s work as for the ostensible reason for nominating a particular performance. She’s already taken the prize at several earlier awards shows. And here she plays a woman suffering from Alzheimer’s, so what could be more Oscar-worthy? Despite mostly stellar performances all over in this category, it's not likely that most of the others have the buzz to challenge her. Ellen Page, who does have it, is probably too …young, to win. And the awesome Aussie Cate Blanchett is less likely to win here than in the Best Supporting Actress category for I’m Not There(and besides, Elizabeth: the Golden Age is awful). Marion Cotillard chews up all the available scenery in the overblown La Vie en Rose,but is unlikely to win. Disappointment, delusion, death--Laura Linney is superb in the highly-unsentimental The Savages,as a failed playwright grappling with the dementia and Parkinson's disease of her estranged father, but probably has no chance of winning. Quel dommage …

Conventional Wisdom: Julie Christie (“Away From Her”)
Dark Horse: Ellen Page (“Juno”)
Who Deserves to Win: Laura Linney (“The Savages”)
Who Will Win: Julie Christie (“Away From Her”)

Best Director
The nominees: Julian Schnabel (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”), Jason Reitman (“Juno”), Tony Gilroy (“Michael Clayton”), the Coen Brothers (“No Country for Old Men”), PT Anderson (“There Will Be Blood”)

It’s a truism that film directors who score nominations for themselves but not for their films in the Best Picture category, can never win this award. That probably rules out the richly-deserving Julian Schnabel for his excellent “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” If I were suddenly granted the power to make a winner of any of the nominees it would be him. Since Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance dominates There Will Be Blood, much like the proverbial colossus bestriding Rome, I think that the also very-deserving PT Anderson will be overlooked for his work. Jason Reitman, of Juno,and the first-time director, Tony Gilroy, of Michael Clayton,probably are just happy to be nominated. That leaves the traditionally Academy-unfriendly Coen Brothers who may win not just for their strangely zeitgeist-tapping No Country for Old Men,but for their many earlier, no-less-accomplished films that were often just a little ahead of their times. They also won the Director’s Guild Award last month and are apparently better known in Hollywood than most of the other nominees.

Conventional Wisdom: The Coen Brothers (“No Country for Old Men”)
Dark Horse: Julian Schnabel (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”)
Who Deserves to Win: Julian Schnabel (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly”)
Who Will Win: The Coen Brothers (“No Country for Old Men”)

Best Supporting Actor
The nominees: Casey Affleck (“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”), Javier Bardem (“No Country for Old Men”), Philip Seymour Hoffman (“Charlie Wilson’s War”), Hal Holbrook (“Into the Wild”), Tom Wilkinson (“Michael Clayton”)

The Academy likes to reward veteran actors / actresses in the Supporting categories. That bodes well for Hal Holbrook, for Into the Wild.(And also for Ruby Dee, see below.) But it’s Javier Bardem that everyone is talking about, and who has already won about a hundred awards for his performance as the other-worldly psycho-killer (with that weird haircut) in No Country for Old Men. Everyone else in this category—as wonderful as they are—seem somewhat overshadowed by him—especially for that creepy / terrifying scene with the gas station attendant. He’s a filmic, twenty-first century symbol of ineluctable death. Casey Affleck’s character of Robert Ford, in my favourite Hollywood film of the year, The Assassination of Jesse James, is less allegorical, more multi-dimensional than that of Bardem’s killer--much more a complex, well-rounded creation. His whiny, ingratiating naivety and disillusioned visions of cheap paperback glory left an indelible impression upon me.

Conventional Wisdom: Javier Bardem (“No Country for Old Men”)
Dark Horse: Hal Holbrook (“Into the Wild”)
Who Deserves to Win: Casey Affleck (“The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”)
Who Will Win: Javier Bardem (“No Country for Old Men”)

Best Supporting Actress
The nominees: Cate Blanchett “I’m Not There”, Ruby Dee “American Gangster” , Saoirse Ronan “Atonement” , Amy Ryan, “Gone Baby Gone” , Tilda Swinton, “Michael Clayton”

Perhaps the closest race in any of these major categories is the one for Best Supporting Actress. Everyone seems to be talking about Cate Blanchett to win for her talismanic mid-60s figure of Bob Dylan in I'm Not There. But while she is very funny and spot-on in capturing something of Dylan’s weird, self-conscious relation to his own fame, her role is arguably not so much a fleshed-out performance than an esoteric impersonation of a popular icon. If the venerable Ruby Dee wins, it’ll be less for American Gangster and more for her career work. In addition to picking up the Golden Globe she also won the Screen Actors’ Guild award in this category. Amy Ryan has the most Oscar-friendly role as the mother of a missing child in Gone Baby Gone, and it’s possible she may score an upset victory here. Both first-time nominees Tilda Swinton and Saorise Ronan gave fine performances, but they’re definite also-rans.

Conventional Wisdom: Ruby Dee “American Gangster”
Dark Horse: Amy Ryan, “Gone Baby Gone”
Who Deserves to Win: Cate Blanchett “I’m Not There”
Who Will Win: Amy Ryan, “Gone Baby Gone”

Coming soon: 2008 Oscar Predictions – Part 2

The Show Must Go On

It seems difficult to imagine the possibility of a year without an Oscars ceremony. Yet that was nearly the case this year with the writer’s strike waging for months on end. For those of you that are out of the loop, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) has been locking horns with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), for roughly 14 weeks now over contract negotiations. At the heart of the matter, are issues with royalties on Internet downloads and DVD sales and union jurisdiction over animation and reality program writers. Yet as of last week, it seems a temporary truce has been reached between the writers and the studio execs and the 80th Annual Academy Awards show will thankfully take place on Sunday, February 24th.

We here at the library always welcome the Oscars with open arms and were happy to hear that the show will in fact go on. There is always much buzz and chatter around here as to who will win or at least who deserves to win. A few of my personal favourites that are nominated in different categories this year are No Country for Old Men, Once and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

I must say that with the chilly sub-zero temperatures we’ve been experiencing lately, it’s quite nice to have something to look forward to at this month’s end. And the icing on the cake is that the always effervescent Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, will be hosting once again. Stay tuned for more information on the Oscar contest, Oscar nominated DVDs and forthcoming displays our Audiovisual department has to offer you this Oscar season.

Win a DVD and bragging rights

Are you up to snuff and sharp as a tack in your movie viewing? Even if you shake your head no, venture forth to the library for your Oscar form. Try your hand at choosing who will garner the awards and accolades at the 80th Annual Academy Awards. Only a dozen days remain till the sweet ceremony on Sunday, 24 February 2008 at 8pm.

This is your chance to win a DVD, of your choosing, from amongst the nominees of the year. Of course, being able to brag to all your family and friends about how you predicted the outcome of the 2nd annual Audio Visual Department competition is also great fun. Everyone can participate and all you need is a pen or pencil to fill in the circles for the sixteen questions.

When you pop over for your entry form, do stop for a moment to talk shop. We are always ready to discuss excellent entertainment and speculate lightly on who some of the possible winners may be. While in your favorite local library, do see what new DVDs are available and what other intriguing items we have on hand.