Tuesday, September 30th - Movie Day!

I've said on a few occasions that I used to be a proprietor of a awards show website before I whittled down my online focus to the distracted musings you are reading now.  I still kind of miss the daily grind of updating that site, especially now that we are getting down into the nitty gritty of movie awards season.  Yes, there is a season.  Around Thanksgiving, you'll start to see all the critic's groups out there release their nominations and/or awards, groups like the Broadcast Film Critics, New York Film Critics, LA Film Critics, Hollywood Foreign Press (Golden Globes), etc, and then once the first of the year rolls around, you'll start seeing the nominations for the various guilds out there, like Producers Guild, Writers Guild, Screen Actors Guild, Costume Designers Guild, etc, with all of these leading up into a strange fashion to the Academy Awards, which may or may not follow the trends laid down in the previous awards.  It is an interestingly political type system, with backbiting, behind the scenes drama, and extreme ego.  In short...I LOVE IT!

So, as we move further down the pike, I will be doing some periodic movie stuff on here.  I would say at this point in the year, there is only one movie that appears to be a lock for a Best Picture nomination, and if the Academy had any sense in their heads and an eye on their steadily dropping ratings, then they will pile on the nominations for The Dark Knight, and I do mean everything from acting, writing, directing, music, and costume design.  They will be doing a disservice to a modern masterpiece if they relegate it to the ghetto of the technical awards.

I'm hopeful that the Oscar show will be better this year, too.  They've already named the creative team behind Dreamgirls to be the producers of this year show, so at least they know the gays are an important part of their audience.   Here's to hoping!

With that being said, here are 5 obvious Oscar-bait movies that I am looking forward to seeing (no particular order):

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - It has Cate Blanchette in it.  So, I'll see it just for that.  Throw in an intriguing story of Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) being born an old man and aging backwards, and I think you definitely have a recipe for something interesting.  My fear is that it might be too big of a concept for David Fincher, but hey, all is forgiven for Alien 3, right? right? (Okay, to his credit he also has Seven, Panic Room, and Zodiac to cleanse that pallet)
• The Changeling - Angelina Jolie in a Clint Eastwood directed picture?  I'm so there.
• Revolutionary Road - Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, and directed by Kate's husband, Sam Medes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition), and well, I think this has Oscar written all over it.  Plus, it is based on the quintessential book about life in the constipated 1950s, which boasts brawls the likes we haven't seen since Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf?...well, this might just be the feel bad movie of the year!
• Doubt - Based on the acclaimed play, this movie has Meryl Streep as a disapproving nun.  Oh hell yes!
• Australia - Baz Luhrmann returns to the screen after Moulin Rouge with this Nicole Kidman/Hugh Jackman fronted drama taking place in, well duh, Australia.  From the trailers and commercials, it strikes me like an African Queen-type movie with Kidman, like Hepburn, as the uptight woman who learns to live from the hardscrabble Jackman (playing the Bogart role).  I think this is one has the best (or worst) chances of being a bloated mess that makes zero money, but we'll see.

Another movie that I really do not want to place on my list, though there is a definite possibility you might see some of the actors getting nominated.  The movie is W, the story of George W. Bush being written and directed by Oliver Stone.  It has been a while since Stone has been firing on all cylinders, and everything I have seen about it has made me cautiously optimistic.  Though, frankly, I can't imagine this making a lot of money.  Here's a trailer: