Oscars

Overall, this has been kind of a bad day. Heath Ledger's death sucks. I found out this morning that a paper I had submitted to a conference in Paris did not get accepted. I also found a stain on a shirt that is not going to come out. Bummers all around.

But the Oscars always bring a smile to my face.

Shockingly, the Oscars seem to have gotten a lot right this year, probably for the first time in my lifetime.

I'm not prepared to list my best movies of the year yet (have to wait until the day before the Oscars so I can watch more of them). But they seem to have made good choices all around.

Best Picture--No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood are unassailable choices. I was pleasantly surprised to see Juno nominated--not only is it completely deserving but it is not the kind of movie that gets nominated often. I have no desire to see Atonement, though I guess I will now. There's always some sort of costume drama that looks utterly uninteresting and Atonement was the 2007 version. Michael Clayton is a fine movie, but has no business here. The Savages and Before the Devil Knows You're Dead are significantly better, as are Knocked Up and Superbad. Still, it's hardly a bad film.

The best actor nominations are all pretty defensible. I haven't seen Sweeney Todd or In the Valley of Elah, but by most accounts Depp is good and Tommy Lee Jones deserves a nomination on principle. It's hard to not see this going to Lewis and that is fine. I was glad to see both Hal Holbrook and Tom Wilkinson nominated for best supporting actor. Holbrook should win, but it will probably be Javier Bardem, and again, that's fine. I have only seen 2 of the 5 best actress nominees. Ellen Page is deserving as is Laura Linney. That seems like a pretty open category. The Oscars love their big stars and that might favor Cate Blanchett, but by all accounts that Elizabeth movie was atrocious. Blanchett seems like she could be the favorite for the supporting actress category. I thought her performance is I'm Not There was mimicry instead of real acting, but people seem to like imitations as acting. Me, I'm happy to watch Don't Look Back for that Dylan. That said, Blanchett is fine in the role. What could doom her though is the split vote between the two categories. I suppose they'll be some support for Ruby Dee and it's hard to argue with that. I thought Tilda Swinton was quite good. The real winner should be Catherine Keener for Into the Wild, but she got gypped out of the nomination. Of the 3 I've seen in this category, I'll be rooting for Swinton.

I was also quite pleased at movies that did not receive many nominations. I feared that The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Into the Wild would be best pictures nominees; not only did they not deserve it, but they are both rather bad movies. For some reason, if you make a slow pointless movie that tries to say something and put it in iconic American scenery, the critics love it regardless of the film's actual quality. Into the Wild has excellent supporting acting throughout though. I would have liked to see a little more love for Eastern Promises, but I'm comfortable with the single nomination for Viggo.

What's great is the lack of any obviously laughable choices. Usually the laughable choices win--Crash, Shakespeare in Love, American Beauty, Chariots of Fire, Dances with Wolves, Chicago, etc. So if the ceremony actually happens this year, I can watch with comfort.

Now let's hope they don't make my head explode by pairing Celine Dion with Ennio Morricone again.