Oscar season is upon us, and once again, the Academy has a staggering array of talent lined up for the 81st annual awards ceremony on February 22. But, as always, there’s still plenty of room for disagreement over the official nominations. We asked notable local cinephiles to give us their fantasy Oscar picks. Here’s what they came up with.
Jose Augusto Barriga
Festival director, Boston Latino International Film Festival | www.bliff.org
Gus Van Sant's strongest movie yet with a phenomenal cast. Milk's release was right on time, coinciding with a pivotal presidential election and the historical anti-gay Proposition 8 battle in California.
George Bragdon
Program Manager, Coolidge Corner Theatre | www.coolidge.org
- Best Picture (also, Best Sound) | WALL-E
Never have bleeps and bloops sounded so emotive. This eye-popping, heartfelt family movie also happens to be the sharpest critique us lazy American consumers and our corporation-saturated culture. Even weirder, it's a Disney movie.
- Best Performance by an Invertebrate Sea Creature | The Jellyfish, Seven Pounds
A "stunning" (groan) performance. The title of the film also refers to the number of pounds you'll lose laughing your ass off as the premise to this lame Will Smith movie unfolds tragically before your eyes.
- Best Actor | Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
After a decade or so of living on the Hollywood fringe, Rourke got his career off the ropes and pulled out a comeback performance that's like a body slam to your heart.
- Best Song | "Iron Man" by Black Sabbath, Iron Man
Because when else are Sabbath going to have a chance to win an Oscar?
- Best Actor, In a Musical or Comedy | Robert Pattinson, Twilight
This was a comedy, right?
J. Cannibal
King of Horror Burlesque | www.jcannibal.com
- Best Picture | Let the Right One In
Forget the loathsome pop phenomenon of Twilight; if you want to see a real vampire love story, then check out this subtly terrifying yet beautiful Swedish film about the friendship forged between a preteen outcast and the new undead girl next door. Disregard "horror" and "foreign language" — this is the best new film I've seen all year, period.
Cheryl Eagan-Donovan
President, Women in Film & Video/New England | www.womeninfilmvideo.org
- Best Picture | Slumdog Millionaire
It’s manipulative, over-the-top — a true return to melodrama in all its former glory. The suspension of disbelief is achieved with such bravado, against our collective better judgment, the audiences knows this must be truth, and as parables go, this is one for our times. Against the backdrop of our ever-shrinking global existence and the seemingly endless economic implosion — who doesn’t want to be a millionaire? — it works as both satire and allegory. It deserves to win not because it’s daring, innovative, or groundbreaking, but because it's that rare film that reaches across demographic boundaries, with eye candy and action sequences to rival Quantum of Solace, a love story and plot device that hearken back to An Affair to Remember, and the most effective use of flashback since It’s a Wonderful Life.
- Best Director #1 | Gus Van Sant, Milk
Not just for Milk but for Paranoid Park, Last Days, Good Will Hunting, Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho, Mala Noche, and all the rest.
- Best Director #2 | Mike Leigh, Happy-Go-Lucky
Not just for Happy-Go-Lucky, but for Vera Drake, Topsy-Turvy, Secrets & Lies, Naked, Life Is Sweet, All or Nothing, and High Hopes.
- Best Animated Film | WALL-E
Because this is the future. We can all stop waiting for The Jetsons to become reality now.
- Best Documentary #1 | Chris & Don: A Love Story
This is one chapter in the life of a great American writer, a Zeitgeist Films documentary that I’ve wanted to make for 15 years.
- Best Documentary #2 | American Teen
Nanette Burstein is shattering the celluloid ceiling one film at a time.
- Best Actor #1 | Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Greatest comeback, especially braving the late-night-television talk show circuit making a fashion statement that is an homage to Johnny Depp and Keith Richards.
- Best Actor #2 | Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Because Heath Ledger is our James Dean, and we will always revere him.
- Best Musical | Mamma Mia!
Not since The Rocky Horror Picture Show have teenagers been dancing in the aisles of movie houses.
- Best Original Screenplay #1 | Synecdoche, New York
Because Charlie Kaufman is the creator.
- Best Original Screenplay #1 | Stop-Loss
Because Kimberly Peirce proves with her long-awaited sophomore effort that boys do cry.
Ned Hinkle
Creative director of the Brattle Theatre | www.brattlefilm.org
- Best Picture | Let the Right One In
- Best Director | Let the Right One In
- Best Actress | Michelle Williams, Wendy and Lucy
- Best Supporting Actor | Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
At my fantasy Oscars, the amazing Swedish vampire/teen romance Let the Right One In garners Best Picture and Director; Michelle Williams gets Best Actress for Wendy and Lucy; and Robert Downey Jr., during his acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actor (for Tropic Thunder), announces that they're making a sequel to Kiss Kiss Bang Bang!
Ian Judge
Director of Operations, F.E.I. Theatres (Somerville Theatre + Capitol Theatre) | www.feitheatres.com
- Best Actor | Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
You've got to give this to Mickey Rourke, not only because his performance in The Wrestler is excellent, but also because who wouldn't like to see Mickey Rourke get up in front of all those Hollywood phonies and get an Oscar? I have no idea how it is that people as untalented as Jamie Foxx and Robin Williams have Oscars and Mickey Rourke does not.
- Best Picture | Gran Torino
And not just because Clint Eastwood actually has a gun against my back as I say this. It is a particularly American story, and there is something wonderfully unpretentious about Eastwood's style.
- Best Actress | Kate Winslet
Winslet should probably already have one of these, but since she hasn't yet, let's give her one for, let's see — what did she do this year? Oh yeah, Revolutionary Road.
James Nadeau
Contributing editor, Big RED & Shiny | www.bigredandshiny.com
- Best Picture (Mainstream) | The Dark Knight
While there weren't nearly enough scenes with Christian Bale shirtless (and to be honest, it ran a little long), I think this is my pick for one of the best of this year. Heath Ledger gave one of the most stirringly deranged performances in spite of all the hype and drama around his death and the role. Ignore all that, and you have a truly creepy Joker. I think that he'll get a nomination but not the win.
- Best Picture (Non-Mainstream) #1 | Mister Lonely
Great film. Wonderful acting. Subtle and mesmerizing. I hated all of his [Harmony Korine's] other films, but this one made me a convert. Charlie Chaplin, Marilyn Monroe, and Michael Jackson on a commune alongside a Pope who smells bad. Nuff said.
Michael Neel
Director, Drive-in Horrorshow | www.driveinhorrorshow.com
- Best Picture | Cloverfield
Why does the Best Picture have to be some weepy drama released in the last few months of the year? Horror can be just as hard to do well, and Cloverfield was one of the most exciting, engaging, and suspenseful movies of 2008. And it was released in January! Take that, Academy.
- Best Cinematography | Tak Fujimoto, The Happening
OK, so the movie sucks. But no one told cinematographer Tak Fujimoto, who created great mood and atmosphere that was much better than the movie deserved.
- Best Actress | Jess Weixler, Teeth
A young woman with vagina dentata is not the easiest role to pull off. Weixler created great sympathy for her character but never held back when she had to flex her muscles.
- Best Actress | Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
What else can you say about this performance? An ingenious and hilarious turn in a role that could have flatlined. Downey Jr. is back ... now let's just hope he can stay clean.
- Best Editing | Matt Chesse and Richard Pearson, Quantum of Solace
The editing in Quantum of Solace made some people want to vomit. I quite enjoyed the frantic pace and high-energy spectacle. Plot? Who needs a plot?
- Best Director | Jon Favreau, Iron Man
Am I the only one who liked Iron Man more than The Dark Knight? Favreau delicately balanced the action and effects with a wonderful story. Even if you removed the effects scenes, this would still be an engaging movie. You can't say that about most summer blockbusters.
- Achievement in Makeup | The Ruins
So many films this year had great makeup, but I'm a sucker for graphic amputation. And The Ruins had the best amputation this year.
Aliza Shapiro
Co-organizer, "CineMental" film series | www.truthserum.org
- Best Picture (Mainstream) | Milk
For mainstream releases, my pick for Best Picture is Milk for how well crafted it was, for how moving I found it (Gus Van Sant's skill at emotional manipulation, perhaps), and for Sean Penn's superb portrayal (though I do think he should have played up the New York Jew a bit more). And also because it's the last mainstream release I've seen in 2008, and I have the memory of a cat and the attention of a gnat.
- Best Picture (Non-Mainstream) #1 | The Lollipop Generation
How long we've waited for this film! It's thrilling that it's "finished" and getting shown! (Hopefully at "CineMental" soon.)
- Best Picture (Non-Mainstream) #2 | Trans Entities: The Nasty Love of Papi and Wil
This is a documentary of a transgender, polyamorous, kinky couple of color, and it's a porn film also. Really hot, really sweet, and enlightening on so many levels.
Janaka Stucky
Founder and managing editor of Black Ocean press | www.blackocean.org
- Best Animated Feature | Fear(s) of the Dark
A vastly overlooked feature-length collection of short films by some of the world's hippest and most transcendent graphic novelists, this film manages to pluck all our emotional strings using only black-and-white cartoons. At times humorous, terrifying, uncomfortable, and empathetic, it sure beats the overwrought, franchised pants off every Pixar movie ever made.
- Best Actor | Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
Rourke’s turn as washed-up wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson is probably too subtle and seamless to gain him the an Academy Award. His complex portrayal manages to pry loose your every sympathy while still making you feel like he deserves the difficult cards he’s dealt. His redemption is too real for Hollywood which is exactly why you should see this film despite the fact he doesn’t stand a shot at taking home this Oscar.
Brian Tamm
Managing director of the Independent Film Festival Boston | www.iffboston.org
- Best Actor | Jean-Claude Van Damme, JCVD
Mickey Rourke is getting all the attention, but another '80s icon made a triumphant return to the screen this year by playing himself, more or less: Jean-Claude Van Damme. In JCVD, The Muscles from Brussels displays a tender side as well, as he literally rises above the chaos of his life to deliver a six-minute soliloquy on the nature of fame, and the opportunities that might have been. Heartbreaking.
- Best Actress | Kristin Scott Thomas, I’ve Loved You So Long
The Academy tends to equate the best acting with the most acting (I'm looking at you, Anne Hathaway), which is a shame, because in I’ve Loved You So Long, Kristin Scott Thomas proves that an understated performance is far more rewarding. When we first see her in the film, she is completely hollowed out, but, scene after scene, she subtly fills up as she re-enters her life.
