Best Picture

Ok, I have just a little while to get this together. It's been a busy couple days!  Here's the last one I'm going to do.

The Academy has these nominees from which to choose:

Amour
Argo
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Django Unchained
Les Miserables
Life of Pi
Lincoln
Silver Linings Playbook
Zero Dark Thirty

And the Oscar goes to:

Lincoln. I think that the movie that wins in this category should have it all. It should be well written (check). It should have an amazing cast (check). It should have top-notch performances (check). It be clear in its directorial vision without it being heavy-handed (check).  It should have a great score (check). It should look amazing (check). It should have great costumes (check). It should be edited well (check).  You get the idea. I have seen a number of the other nominees, and the only other one that I think is close is Les Miserables. Silver Linings Playbook is really great, but it is missing in some of the other areas. 

So, one more time, let's have some fun with this.

Dream Nominees:

Skyfall
The Dark Knight Rises
The Avengers
Trouble with the Curve
Flight

And my Oscar would go to:

The Dark Knight Rises.  This is the best of the Dark Knight movies. I love the story, I love the casting, I love the way it looked.  I love that it surprised me in a couple places. I loved Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Christian Bale, Joseph Gordon Levitt, and Marion Collitard. The ending was THE BEST! This is one of those movies that would never win at the real Academy Awards, but it was a great movie that rode the line between intense and fun so well.

The red carpet is almost over. I need to get settled in for the broadcast.  Enjoy!

Best Animated Film

The Academy has these choices for Best Animated Film:

Brave
Frankenweenie
Paranorman
Pirates! Band of Misfits
Wreck It Ralph

And the winner is:

I believe Disney's Brave will win. Disney's strongest female character yet is a shoo-in. It's a strong story, fun, and funny. As a person with curly hair, I appreciate the head of beautiful curly red hair they gave her! 




So, let's find a few more to consider.

The Rise of the Guardians
Hotel Transylvania
Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
Ice Age: Continental Drift
The Lorax

Ok, I haven't seen that many animated films this year. I saw Brave and I liked it a lot. The other one I saw was The Rise of Guardians.  I loved this movie. It was beautifully drawn, and well acted.  I loved Hugh Jackman as the Easter Bunny, and Alec Baldwin as a Russian Santa. I loved that it was all about finding your inner strength and childhood wonder. I would love to see a sequel to this movie.

Best Director

The Academy has the following to choose from for Best Director.

Best Director Nominees
Amour--Michael Haneke
Beasts of the Southern Wild--Behn Zeitlin
Life of Pi--Ang Li
Lincoln--Steven Spielberg
Silver Linings Playbook--David O. Russell

And the Oscar will go to:

I believe the Academy will choose Steven Spielberg's Lincoln.  This is his 9th nomination in this category and the last time he won was in 1999 for Saving Private Ryan. The sweep of this movie and the way the story is told is worth the Oscar.  I don't know that he had much to do with the creative process that made Daniel Day-Lewis Lincoln, but I would think wrangling everyone else around that had to be a job and a half. I have not seen Life of Pi, but I know that Ang Li is a favorite as well and the imagery even in the previews makes this a tight race, I think. I loved Silver Linings Playbook, but I feel like there were too many continuity errors for it to win best directing, he's supposed to have the all the movie in mind. I saw Beasts of the Southern Wild, it is an interesting concept, but I would be surprised if it won. I have not seen Amour.

My choices for best directing would be.

Dream Nominees:
Tom Hooper--Les Miserables, he made brilliant choices all around. I am sad to see he wasn't picked for real.
Ben Affleck--Argo. Ok, so I haven't seen Argo, but he won every other award, and I've loved Gone, Baby Gone.
Joss Whedon--The Avengers.  The post-credits scene is worth an Oscar by itself.
Asger Leth--Man on a Ledge. He made Sam Worthington seem like a real actor.
Robert Zemekis--Flight. His choices in story telling and analogy are outstanding.

And if I could nominate someone for worst directing it would be Gary Ross for the Hunger Games. That movie could have been so much better if I hadn't needed to keep my head cocked to one side or the other half the time.

And my winner is:

Joss Whedon for the Avengers. Yes, I love Joss Whedon. I am a closet (not any longer) Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel fan. I love Firefly. If you haven't seen Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, you are missing a cult classic. (Thank you Leighton!) The man wrote the screenplay for the original Toy Story for goodness sake! And I can't tell you how excited I am that he has done a version of my favorite Shakespeare play, Much Ado About Nothing. No one else could have wrangled all these superheroes and not turn it into a 100% cheesefest. The movie was what movies are supposed to be FUN! That's all comes from the vision, straight from the director. Thank you Joss!

Best Supporting Actress

The choices for Best Supporting Actress are:

Best Supporting Actress Nominees:
Amy Adams--The Master
Sally Field--Lincoln
Anne Hathaway--Les Miserables
Helen Hunt--The Sessions
Jacki Weaver--Silver Linings Playbook

And the winner will be:

Anne Hathaway as Fantine in Les Miserables. Her performance, though brief, is so very, very strong. I think in part due to the fact that David Hooper designed this more like a play, where the singing is done live. This race is almost too close to call though, because I think they will also lean toward Sally Field's performance as Mrs. Lincoln. She does an excellent job of riding the line between the ambitious woman that pushes her husband and the grief-stricken crazy woman. I felt such empathy for Jacki Weaver as Bradley Cooper's mom in Silver Linings Playbook. Again, I have not seen The Master nor The Sessions.

So, let's have some fun with this idea:
Dame Judi Dench--Skyfall--She has been an amazing M. Can you tell I love her and secretly want to be her?
Samantha Barks--Les Miserables--Her Eponine was excruciatingly beautiful.
Scarlett Johannson--Avengers--For her opening scene alone, I think she deserves a nod, and I don't particularly like her. I mean, who gives up Ryan Reynolds?
Anne Hathaway--The Dark Knight Rises--I know, I know, twice in the same category, but her Catwoman was worlds above Halle Berry's.
Charlize Theron--Snow White and the Huntsman--She takes this classic Evil Queen to a whole new level (and does it so much better than Julia Roberts did --sorry Julia, I still love you).

The winner is:

This is probably the category I had the hardest time with. I made my bed, now I have to lie in it as the saying goes. Well darn it! This isn't real! I choose....




Dame Judi Dench, Anne Hathaway, and Samantha Barks! Dame Judi Dench has always played M tough with this soft spot for Daniel Craig's Bond. Perhaps that's why I love her so much, cause I too have a soft spot for Daniel Craig (sorry, Rachel Weisz). Dench is an amazing actress and is so British. I chose Anne Hathaway partially because my brother would never speak to me again if I didn't, he has a little (well, a big thing) for her. But, not only did she look great in this role, but she was great as this tough, street-smart character. A long way from the Princess of Genovia. Lastly, there is Samantha Barks as Eponine. First of all, by far the best voice in the entire movie. Secondly, how is it possible that someone's waist could be that small?  Really though, the scene where she watches Cosette and Marius fall in love and then her death scene are both so well acted!

Best Supporting Actor

Members of the Academy have these choices for Best Supporting Actor:

Best Supporting Actor Nominees:

Alan Arkin--Argo
Robert DeNiro--Silver Linings Playbook
Philip Seymour Hoffman--The Master
Tommy Lee Jones--Lincoln
Christoph Waltz--Django Unchained

Winner: I believe the Academy will pick Christoph Waltz for Django Unchained.  They like him, as evidenced by his win for Inglorious Bastards. They all secretly like Quentin Tarantino (even though I completely don't get it.) This is way they can give him a nod and give Waltz a nod as well.  I probably won't ever see this movie, at least until they put it on TV. I made the mistake of seeing several Tarantino films because of a boy, and they are just too much everything for me. The language, the violence, the kitchiness; it's all too much. I haven't seen Argo yet, though I want to. Alan Arkin is a legend and I am pleased he continues to work.  Philip Seymour Hoffman is a great actor, but since his role in the Master is likened to L. Ron Hubbard, I think it probably hit too close to home for many of the Hollywood crowd who are surrounded by Scientology. Personally I think it should go to either Tommy Lee Jones for his portrayal of the abolitionist Senator Thaddeus Stevens in Lincoln or to Robert DeNiro for the emotional rollercoaster he takes us on as Bradley Cooper's dad in Silver Linings Playbook. 

Now, here's some other options for this category.

Dream Nominees:
Jeremy Renner--The Avengers--It's Jeremy Renner with a bow and arrow slinging wit and death
Clark Gregg--The Avengers--He has been the best character in all the Marvel movies
Justin Timberlake --Trouble With the Curve--Justin may have been Justin as a former baseball player, but I can't help but love his personality.
Michael Caine--The Dark Knight Rises--The best Albert ever, had to make the most awful of choices
Javier Bardem--Skyfall--There hasn't been a Bond villain that I was more afraid of and hated more than him.

The Winner:

Another tie, it seems I can't decide which male characters I like the best. This time between good and evil. Clark Gregg's and Javier Bardem's performances are classics. Clark Gregg's Agent Phil Coulson is the unexpected tough guy who has the safety of the world in his hands at all times. He keeps his cool and is smarter than most the people in the room. His death in Avengers made me gasp and pretty mad. Javier Bardem's evil Silva was creepy, scary, nasty, violent, and every other dark adjective you can think of.  His use of "Mommy" in reference to M was just one of the creepiest things I've ever heard.

Up next: Best Supporting Actress

Best Actress

Now, let's look at the ladies. These are the Academy's choices.

Best Actress Nominees:
Jessica Chastain--Zero Dark Thirty
Jennifer Lawrence--Silver Linings Playbook
Emmanuelle Riva--Amour
Quvenzhane Wallis--Beasts of the Southern Wild
Naomi Watts--The Impossible

Winner: It's a toss up between Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence. Both have won Golden Globe awards and Lawrence also won the SAG award. However, if I had an vote at the Academy, I would vote for Naomi Watts. Her performance in The Impossible was strong and moving.

Here's my additions to the Oscar crowd. Again, perhaps not the most academic of choices, but here it goes.

Dream Nominees:
Judi Dench-The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel--I would vote for her in almost any role.
Amy Adams-Trouble with the Curve--I always love it when the girl knows a little about baseball.
Katherine Heigl--One for the Money--Stephanie Plum gets to have a thing for Jason O'Mara, enough said.
Rachel McAdam--The Vow--She gets to be in love with Channing Tatum, forget to you are in love with him, and then fall in love with him again.
Reese Witherspoon--This Means War-- She gets to have Tom Hardy and Chris Pine fight over her, I completely envied her.

Winner: Amy Adams as the feisty daughter of a baseball scout (Clint Eastwood) in Trouble with the Curve. This was one of my favorite movies of the year. All she ever wanted was to spend time with and be noticed by her dad.

The Oscars are Coming

This Sunday night is a very exciting night for me. It is, for me, how many of you approach the Superbowl. The night of all nights, the big show, the single most important broadcast of the year. Most years, I could care less who wins the Superbowl. That is, unless the Steelers are in it, or I've found some player to whom I've found a particular attachment. But, seeing as I may watch 10 minutes of football all season, it is not likely to happen.

This Sunday night is the Academy Awards, or the Oscars, as some are likened to call it. This is Hollywood's biggest night. The stars will be out in their finest to celebrate, as the Academy picks what they deem as best in film. I know it's a night of self-aggrandizement. I know it's wrought with liberal grandstanding. I know that most of the films I love will never make it to the ballot. But, I love it anyway. The movies, for me are all about the story; gritty stories, funny stories, moving stories, thought-provoking story. larger-than-life stories, real-life stories, I love them all. It's about the actors you've grown to love, those you don't get, or even those you hate. Most years, (like this one) I haven't even seen all the films.  I have friends who luckily have the time in their schedules to do the now, two-day Oscar marathon at the local theater.  I don't have time for that anymore, teaching lessons on Fridays and Saturdays take precedence. But, I have made an effort to see a lot of them.  I am going to put myself out there and give you my predictions, as well as who I would really want to see nominated and win.

I will post each one as a separate post...hope it's fun for you!

Best Actor

Let's start with the men.  The Academy had these gentlemen to choose from.

Best Actor Nominees:
Bradley Cooper - Silver Lining Playbook
Daniel Day-Lewis - Lincoln
Hugh Jackman - Les Miserables
Joaquin Phoenix - The Master
Denzel Washington - Flight

Winner:  Daniel Day-Lewis will likely win this, he's won everything else. He truly became Lincoln, or what we perceive as Lincoln. People who play historical figures are nominated a lot. Though, I have to wonder why one of my favorites, John Cusack, was not nominated then for his role as Edgar Allen Poe in The Raven. The only movie I haven't seen is The Master. The others were all outstanding performances in their own right, but if anyone other than Daniel Day-Lewis wins this, I will likely faint.

Now, we all know that Oscar-worthy films aren't usually the ones that draw the big crowds, so aside from these great performances, here are a couple more that I think are award-worthy.

Dream Nominees: 
Josh Brolin - Men In Black III --he truly was the young Tommy Lee Jones.
Steve Carrell - Seeking a Friend for the End of the World -- I want to see him win for one of these roles I love him in.
Joseph Gordon Levitt -- Looper -- he was truly the young Bruce Willis
Daniel Craig -- Skyfall -- Someone should win for playing Bond, I think Craig is the best since Connery.
Robert Downey, Jr -- Avengers -- Tony Stark is the guy you love even though he's everything you hate.

Winner:  Tie between Josh Brolin and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  These two actors managed to do some of the best impression work since Rich Little.

So, what would you have picked? It was fun to pull some names together, and a lot harder than you might think! Up next: Best Actress

The Wreckage from Flight

If you saw the previews for "Flight" you may have thought it is the story of an American hero, an airline pilot who lands his plane in impossible circumstances like Sully Sullivan, the pilot who landed the flight in the Hudson River a couple years back. Denzel Washington does an amazing job in this film, not because he's heroic, but because he is completely flawed and broken.

The movie opens in a hotel room, Whip Whitaker (Washington) and a woman (we find out she's a flight attendant on his plane) wake up from a bender, still messed up from the night before. He has a colorful telephone argument with his ex-wife about money before he takes a takes a nose full of cocaine. Then Whip leaves the hotel, dressed in a pilot's uniform.

The subplot is of an young woman named Nicole (Kelly Reilly). She is walking the razor's edge of addiction. She falls off hard when she scores some very strong drugs and chooses to shoot up rather than sniff it.

In the meantime, Whip reports for duty, completes all his pre-flight checks, and takes off through some incredibly bad weather. He manages to find the one sliver of calm in the clouds and though it's scary getting there, he is able to thread the needle and put the plane into smooth air. The 40 minute hop from Orlando to Atlanta is on its way, he slips from the cabin to grab a couple bottles of vodka while the plane is on auto pilot. He goes back to the cabin and falls asleep at the controls.  Suddenly, everything goes south, literally, when the plane pitches into a dive. He is immediately awake, immediately in control, and immediately the consummate professional. He is calm in the face of the panic of everyone around him. I won't give the details away, but what he does with that plane is genius and heroic. He lands the plane with minimal loss of life and like the typical drunk driver, he is virtually unscathed.

When Whip wakes up in the hospital, he finds his old friend and union rep Charlie Anderson (Bruce Greenwood) waiting in his room. He knows that he landed the plane, but has no idea what happened to everyone on board. Protocol is the NTSB must be the first contact after the crash. At the news that members of his crew are amongst those who died, he is visibly shaken. It seems that he knows that his secret is about to catch up with him. He knows he needs to be clean. In fact when his friend (and dealer) Harling (John Goodman) shows up, he refuses the additional "help" he's brought.

It is in the hospital we understand the intersection of lives. Broken people manage to find other broken people. In the stairwell one night, Whip meets Nicole. She lived through the overdose and wants to be clean now. He is drawn to her. He leaves the hospital and goes to his family farm, away from the media circus waiting outside his condo. Once there, he dumps the considerable amount of alcohol and drugs he has stashed away. Determined to be clean, determined to tough it out. He finds Nicole and brings her to stay with him. Like I said, broken people manage to find other broken people.

But, every alcoholic is only one incident away from their next drink.  Whip's comes in the form of a breakfast meeting with Charlie and a Hugh Lang, a lawyer (Don Cheadle). Whip asserts that the airline put him in a broken plane, and no one else could have landed it (which turns out to be true). He asserts that he is a hero. He is prepared to take any blood tests the NTSB may require. The tipping point comes when he finds that those blood tests were already done immediately after the crash. Those tests reveal what we (and he) already knew, he was drunk and high when he stepped on to that plane.

It is from here, the story goes from bad to worse. Whip falls deeper, and deeper into his own nose dive, but he doesn't see it. He continues to assert that the problem was it was a broken plane, why did they send him up in a broken plane? That is where the blame lies. For a brief second, we think that he is going to be okay, and then he crashes again.

I won't give away the ending, since well, what's the point in watching a movie, if you're not going to watch the ending. Let's just say that even though the plane crashes, there are survivors.

This is not an easy movie to watch. It is definitely not a movie where you are going to like very many of the characters and root them on. This movie does contain nudity, some very tough language, adult situations, and a very scary plane crash. Washington's performance is once again top notch. I vacillated from hating the man to feeling horrible for him and back again. It does, however, give an clear picture of the incredible damage that addiction does to lives. I love the incredible metaphor built by the filmmakers here. Whip's life in parallel with what happened in the plane crash. The wreckage all around him, and yet he continues to not see what really happened.

The Up and the Down

I have a new love. It fills my thought processes and distracts me in my daily life. I find myself longing for it and my heartbeat speeds up as it approaches. I'm a little sick when it's over and turn to it whenever I can. If I am afforded the opportunity to share about it, I do. That sounds like love doesn't it? I've not met an interesting new man, or reconnected with someone from my past. Even more embarrassing, it's not a renewed fervor for Jesus that has me all a twitter. No, I have fallen hard for a television show. Downton Abbey.  (No spoilers, I promise.)


I'm somewhat of a anglophile. Not to the extreme, my house isn't decorated with Union Jacks. I do however, have a collection of Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte movies. I collect adaptions of Shakespeare's works and I love the Elizabeth movies. My hope for my 50th birthday is for my high school friend Jill and I to go to England.  One of my favorite movies is "The Holiday" with Jude Law, Cameron Diaz, Jack Black, and Kate Winslet. Go to an quaint English village, meet a interesting, and quite handsome widower. I could handle that.

I honestly don't even know how I happened upon Downton Abbey. It may have been through my Netflix cue since I have a tendency to watch things like "Being Jane" and "Lost in Austen". But from the very first sound of the piano keys and violins, I fell in love.

For those of you who don't know about Downton Abbey (which is amazing to me since I've seen parodies of it on everything from Jimmy Fallon to Sesame Street) it is the story of the aristocratic Crawley family and their bevy of servants, who live in the palatial estate of Downton. Downton is a major character in this show.  The house is actually Highclere Castle in Hampshire, England. It has been the location for several films and music videos. It is a picture of days gone by with its enormous doors, impressive staircases, and antique-filled rooms all on acre upon acre of rolling English countryside. (Can you tell I am smitten?)


Much like it's predecessor,  the BBC's Upstairs, Downstairs, the show uses the differing lives of the aristocrats and the servants to tell the story of England. The show opens on the day that Robert Crawley, the Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville) learns that his heir and daughter Mary's fiance has died in the sinking of the Titanic. And thus begins the tale of woe that propelled the Crawley's into my heart.

Robert has three daughters: beautiful and spoiled Mary (Michelle Dockery), beautiful and kind Sybil (Jessica Brown Findlay), and plain and well, plain, Edith (Laura Carmichael). Robert is married to Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), an American heiress. He married her so her money could save the estate, but fell in love with her years ago. We meet Robert's mother, Violet Crawley (the amazing Maggie Smith), the Dowager Countess who uses her age and position to manipulate, impart wisdom, and be as snarky as she likes. The thing I love about this character is that she is not unchangeable and made of stone. She has eyes that see the wide implications of every choice, and her very English exterior has a mushy center. Since the rule of law in England does not allow for estates like Downton to be passed to daughters, a new heir is found, the decidely middle-class son of a distant cousin, Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), a lawyer by trade (shivers) and his ever-industrious mother Isobel (Penelope Wilton). That completes the "basic" Crawley clan. They are full of intrigue, hatefulness at some times, and deep love at others. One minute you want to smack almost any one of them upside the head and the next you want to give the same person a big hug.

Then there's the "down" of Downton, the servants.  Lead by Mr. Carson (Jim Carter), the butler, and Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan), the housekeeper. Carson, a man of decorum who is all about doing things properly, has a surprising past. Mrs. Hughes has never married and dedicated her life to "service." She finds herself mothering a flock of somewhat unruly children. Anna (Joanne Froggatt) the head housemaid is the angel of the crew, not given to gossip, hardworking, and trusted lady's maid to Lady Mary. It's that trust that leads her to trouble after trouble. If Anna is the angel, then O'Brien (Siobhan Finneran) is the devil. (Shouldn't it be a clue that she's the ONLY character they refer to by her last name alone?) She sets her sights on making misery for as many people as she possibly can, perhaps in hopes of easing some pain we've yet to discover.  Her partner in crime is the footman Thomas (Rob James-Collier) a handsome young man with who yearns for more.  Enter John Bates, (Brendan Coyle) a former army comrade of the Earl's.  He comes in to take the coveted spot as his Lordship's valet. He sets O'Brien's and Thomas's brains to scheming and Anna's heart to fluttering. Then there's the cook, Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicole), her kitchen maid Daisy (Sophie McShera), and about a million other characters to keep up with all of which have a little place of love or loathe in my heart.

I must confess that I grew up watching what my mom called her "stories."  Days of Our Lives, The Doctors, Search for Tomorrow, Another World, Young and the Restless, General Hospital, I watched all of them, plus more. That may be why this type of continuing drama appeals to me. (If you're not familiar with some of those names, just know that they were cancelled before your time.) You meet interesting characters and follow them through fantastical life elements. However, the difference is that Downton is set in a historical context that produces its own fantastical life elements; elements that were real. The sinking of the Titanic, the peerage of land and titles in England, World War I, woman's suffrage, the fight for Irish independence, the Spanish flu epidemic, and many more things yet to come. On top of that, they lived in a time when people thought of things like family and others when they made their decisions. Even though they lived lives of privilege, it was definitely not all about me. They lived a life most of us can't imagine, where the only day of the week that was different than any other was the Sabbath. One of my favorite moments is when Matthew Crawley speaks of "the weekend" and the Dowager Countess has no idea of what he is speaking. Of course, the beautiful setting and amazing costumes don't hurt.

If you have yet to discover the world of the Crawley's, I encourage you to do so.  But, be prepared. No one is safe in this world. And unlike the "stories" my mom and I watched, there are no dream sequences to bring back those who find an untimely end. But be assured that you will find a world filled with loyalty, love, hate, intrigue, despair, hope, joy, pain, and each thing to which Scripture tells us there is a season. Along the way you'll get some witty gems from the Dowager Countess to use as your Facebook status.

So, for now, I will take my leave.