Juno Robbed!

Well, my favorite movie of the past year – Juno – was nearly shut out of this year’s Academy Awards, with Diablo Cody winning for Best Original Screenplay as its “only” award. As I predicted, No Country For Old Men mopped up: the Cohen brothers took home awards for Best Movie, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay while Spain’s Javier Bardem took home the award for Best Supporting Actor. Frankly, I’m stunned. Gobsmacked, even. In my “picks post” I said that I “needed 20 cups of coffee to make it through the movie”. To be honest, that was a bit of an exaggeration. The movie is OK, I guess. But bleak, very bleak. Juno was, in fact, the only “non bleak” movie in the running this year, and was also the only movie up for Best Picture that I’d encourage my friends to go see. Oh well…

I managed to go 9-10 this year, which doesn’t seem that bad until you realize that three of my wins are due to The Bourne Ultimatum sweeping the technical categories. Taking Bourne out of the equation, I went 6-10, which is pretty awful. But not as awful as the Tilda Swinton’s acting in Michael Clayton. Didn’t anyone in the Academy see Gone Baby Gone? Sure, the film’s ending was pretty stupid… but Amy Ryan nailed that part. I absolutely loathed her in that film, almost to the point of wanting to hit her… and that’s exactly how her character should have been played.

Daniel Day-Lewis winning for There Will Be Blood? I guess. I didn’t dislike the film, or Day-Lewis’s acting in it… It just seems that he took the “Bill the Butcher” character from Gangs of New York and toned it down a little. Viggo Mortensen, on the other hand, was incredible in Eastern Promises. Hey Academy! You realize that Viggo is American, right? That he was born in New York, right? I guess it doesn’t hurt that Viggo’s co-star in the film was Naomi Watts, who I think is just as cute as a button. Hey – you know who Naomi Watts reminds me of? Imagine if Claire Danes had grown up to be pretty… I think she’d look like Naomi Watts. Instead, Danes got uglier as time went on, then went and had some weird plastic surgery or something. Ewwwww..

Javier Bardem beat Casey Affleck for best supporting actor? Meh – I saw that one coming from a mile away.

What I didn’t see was Marion Cotillard winning for La Vie en Rose. I didn’t see the film (is it possible to have negative interest in seeing a film?), but if Ellen Page wasn’t going to win, and if Cate Blanchett wasn’t going to win, then I don’t give a damn who wins.

Is it just me, or is Helen Mirren kind of hot for a 63 year-old?

Why no Brad Renfro in the “In Memoriam” tribute? Was he not a member of the Academy? If not, what do you have to do to get into the Academy? Renfo was in 21 films, exactly 1 more film than Heath Ledger, who was included in the tribute. Hmmmm. At least ABC muted the audience applause this year. It seems like in past years the “In Memoriam” tribute had turned into “The World’s Least Tasteful Popularity Contest”.

Oh well, enough of all that. With TV getting better and better these days, I’m kind of looking forward to the Emmys on September 21 more than the next Oscars.