When I saw Cube back in the early 2000s, I was pretty impressed. I rented it with a friend to get drunk and laugh at, but a few minutes into it I realized I was honestly enjoying it, and even fairly scared at points. Which is why I was so pumped when I saw that its sequel Cube 2: Hypercube was on Netflix Instant. Disappointed isn't the right word, I mean I guess I was disappointed that it was so terrible, but I sure did laugh a lot, which I think makes it all OK. Although it's hilarious, it's such a train wreck that it becomes difficult to watch, even at its paltry 80 minute run-time. I'll save you some trouble and give you a detailed synopsis.
The plot is the same as the first, at least in premise. Six strangers are stuck inside a mysterious cube, with a door on every side that just leads to another cube. Sadly in Cube 2, these strangers are all terrible Canadian actors who try to mask their accents with what appear to be lisps. Among my faves, a blind Asian girl with super sonic hearing abilities, and an old lady with Alzheimers who can't find her dog. This character is more offensive than you can even imagine, but I feel perhaps it might be less offensive than actress Barbara Gordon's new Canadian TV series "Little Mosque On the Prairie." Oh boy.
With brilliant minds like these at work, it doesn't take them long to figure out that they're not in your average, every day regular massive cubic structure with hidden traps and moving walls, but a HYPERCUBE, or a cube with four dimensions." You see a hypercube isn't supposed to be real. It's just a theoretical construct" says one character. Oh but it's real my friend, and it's folding space time, trying to kill them by...collapsing them...in space time...with transparent, oozy...wall stuff?
And Windows 95 screensaver thingies...
Wait, let me fix something.
Yes, much better. The movie continues with absolutely nothing remotely resembling a plot and gives the view the feeling that at any moment it could turn into pornography. Spoiler alert: it doesn't, save for one Skinemaxesque scene in which two characters, without explanation, bone while floating in zero gravity (also not explained). But then things keep happening! Like crazy diamond pillars that are also somehow related to space time, and come out and...kind of...stab...people?
Aaaand then it turns into a black hole. Maybe not. But there's like, a space tornado, as seen here:
55. Craig Mack - "Flava in Ya Ear (Remix ft. Puff Daddy, the Notorious B.I.G., Rampage the Last Boy Scout, LL Cool J, and Busta Rhymes)" (Bad Boy Entertainment, 1994)
Before we get to the complete headfuck that is LL Cool J's verse on here, let's discuss the stuff that's good in the conventional sense. First, there's Easy Mo Bee's beat, an unquestionable East Coast Rap classic, two notes and hazy waves that are perfect whenever they come in. It's not Biggie's best verse ever, but it's still a Biggie verse. Busta is 1994 Busta, so he's one of the most joyfully unhinged rappers ever. Mack has "your album couldn't fuck with one line," which is wonderful (in a recursive way) because if that's true of any line Craig ever said it's that line itself. Rampage is solid if unspectacular and Puffy, well, it's actually kind of impressive how sure he was of his impeding world domination (even for a rapper), considering they were pretty much just getting started here.
But the LL verse is what really elevates this to sublime. Remember this was after 14 Shots to the Dome, a relative commercial failure for him, and just before Mr. Smith, which had "Doin' It" and "Hey Lover" and pretty much established the grown up loverman LL we have today. So the vocal style at the beginning of his verse does, I think, prefigure that sort of thing, more calmly seductive than on his late 80s songs for the girls. But the content! What the fuck?
HEEESHEEE! Uh! blowticious skeevy (mmmm) delicious Give me cous-cous, love me good Hollis to Hollywood, but is he good? I Guess like the jeans, uh! Flava like pralines sick daddy knaamean?
They way people use the term "ironic" when it comes to enjoying music means either "enjoying something bad" which, you know, why would you, or "enjoying something for a reason opposite to which it was created" which, you know, how the hell would you know and who cares? Is it safe to assume from his MO directly following this song that LL thought screeching "HEEESHEEE" was sexy?
However you explain my enjoyment of LL's verse here, it's good enough for science to rocket this song up to #55 on our countdown. We should all be using the word "blowticious" more often.
This is the best dubsteppy thing I've heard so far this year, I think. It's called "Picture" and it's by Subeena, who keeps bringing the rhythmic variations subtly enough for them to flow together but often enough for it to be quite exciting. It's all pretty and danceable and interesting and fun, and you should go to Beatport or your preferred dance music mp3 merchant and cop it.
It's one thing writing about why I dislike something totally different from what I've liked before, or something from a scene I used to be into but have more or less given up on. That's easy enough. It's harder, I think, to write about why I don't like something by a band I've loved for a long time and for whom a new record isn't that huge of a departure.
That's as much of an excuse for the following lack of insight as it is my usual obsession with why I think and write the way I do potentially getting in the way of my writing, but anyways, I don't like this new Hold Steady record very much and, this being the first time I've not liked something by Craig Finn, I've been thinking about it a bit.
I don't think that Franz Nicolay leaving has much to do with it. As much as I enjoyed his presence (yes, on record too), I doubt any piano fills could liven up the stuff I don't like here. That stuff starts right off the bat with "The Sweet Part of the City", which is right now my least favorite Hold Steady song ever. It sounds them finally getting pulled into a 90s facsimile of classic rock they've always been more interesting than. That I, on balance, prefer Finn ranting to him singing should be no surprise, but this is the most that his lyrical hooks have ever felt lost in a song.
It's not all bad, of course. "We Can Get Together" is even softer than "The Sweet Part of the City" and references a bunch of songs and is mostly about Heavenly, of all bands, but does well with a sweetness that is one of Finn's more underrated attributes. And I've come around on "Hurricane J", a song about a girl that, for once, isn't named after a saint. But in the end, it mostly sounds to me like a bunch of anthems without nearly enough hooks. I might go read the lyric sheet.
56. The Velvet Underground - "I'm Set Free" (from the self-titled album, MGM Records, 1969)
Guitar solos are sweet, but I rarely listen to songs only for the solo. The rest of this song is good too, but the solo is one of those sublime moments that elevates every moment spent in its company.
It's not about Politics, religion, or the economy It's not about borders, history, trade, oil, water, gas, mineral rights, human rights or animal rights...
I realize that this being Bono's voice makes it extra-annoying, and I realize that ESPN is trying to position the World Cup to US viewers as an Olympic-style, world-uniting event (which it is), and that might be a pretty decent tactic.
But does this ad rub anyone else the wrong way, this explicit call-to-apathy, the idea that the World Cup is so wonderful (it is very, very wonderful) that it makes everyone's problems go away? Especially as they're running ads for the ESPN documentary about the political importance of the '95 Rugby World Cup during the same commercial breaks (a TV network trying to have it both ways, ring the alarm, I know). The World Cup is one of the happiest things in the world, and I will enjoy it immensely, but trying to depoliticize an event as Global as this seems odd. The histories of the nations involved and their current place in the world don't diminish the spectacle or the efforts on the field. At the very least they enrich the narrative and at best maybe some new bit of social consciousness can sneak through to the millions of people watching.
(I'm sure when ESPN is running human-interest stories instead of analyzing football for hours a day next month I will run a furious retraction)
I finally listened to the new Caribou album (finally in 2010 parlance = less than a week after it was released, obviously) the other day and I'll be damned if it hasn't been haunting the stereo at YMD headquarters pretty much non-stop ever since. After five or six listens, it's pretty solidly my favorite record of the year (with only the Yelawolf tape in striking distance, really). I'm not sure what I was expecting from Mr. Snaith after the sunny psych-pop of Andorra but a House record wasn't really it.
Lead single "Odessa" shows the most obvious traces of Snaith's collaboration with the Junior Boys' Jeremy Greenspan, sounding more or less like a good Junior Boys track done with Snaith's textural preoccupations. It's great, but the second track, "Sun", is where things really start to open up for me, as warm as it's title implies and building on a familiar drum pattern to build something I would love to dance to outdoors this summer. On the next track Snaith starts getting crazy with the stereo panning and I love every second of it. It's exactly what a Caribou dance album would sound like, now that you think about it, and full of surprises at the same time.
Snaith talks in this Pitchfork interview about how both the structure and compositional tools of modern House opened up all kinds of possibilities for him and, while I'm cynical enough to think about how this won't stop Swim from influencing some terrible "it's like dance music, but by a real artist" writing (why do I Google things*) the more people on the dance floor the better, right? Best Caribou/Manitoba yet? Too early to tell, but maybe.
* Okay, I know, what's the point of getting upset about a site I only stumbled upon by googling "Caribou swim Jeremy Greenspan" but they gets advertising so it must be something, right? And I'm too old to be surprised by people having condescending attitudes towards dance music, but god damn, "a reputation for rigid structures" my balls. And the bit about Kelley Polar and Junior Boys (both of whom I love) "often ditching cliched components of electronica like auto-tuning and forced flanging for more structurally daring feats" is even dumber, right? Because what could "structurally" even mean that Auto-tune and "forced flanging" would have anything to do with it? And they're being structurally daring by applying pop structures to, respectively, disco and, err, electro-pop?
I am 100% for exploring and writing about music from genres and scenes you don't know shit about. But you have to be humble enough to admit that you don't know shit about them. I'm certainly guilty of not doing this once in a while too, but I promise, I'm trying.
57. Elton John - "Crocodile Rock" (DJM Records, 1972)
Good to great songs about dances are a dime a dozen, as are songs about nostalgia for a rock and roll childhood. However, songs about doing an imagined dance to an imagined song during your rock and roll childhood are, as far as I know, quite a bit more rare and the creation of such a thing by Bernie Taupin is a wonderful move. Whether not actually inventing a dance to go with is laziness or allowing for creativity on the part of the listener or both I'm not sure, but it doesn't bother me. The famously and excellently annoying hook is either more important than the lyrical content or just a cherry on top, depending on my mood.
58. The Flaming Lips - "Superhumans" (from the Transmissions From the Satellite Heart album, Warner Bros., 1993)
This is the #1 Flaming Lips hit in my heart, for me the perfect mix of their scuzz and their world-conquering giddiness. The lyrics combine a message of personal sacrifice (one of Wayne Coyne's favorite themes) with with a combination of animal and space imagery that has pretty much become his bread and butter on-stage. The way Wayne strains for the melody here is completely appropriate for someone singing to a love object which seems to be as grand as a galaxy, and the when the guitar solo soars in, briefly, it soars towards the heavens.
So the Oscars kind of burned me out a bit, but we're totes back. Here's a wonderful song.
59. Amy Grant - "Baby, Baby" (A&M Records, 1991)
I'm no expert on Amy Grant. I know she's like the most successful Christian artist evehr and that she has a wonderful voice, but I've only really heard bits and pieces of her crossover stuff, my fav of which is surprise, surprise, her mega hit single "Baby, Baby". In my childhood memory, it shares space with early, curly-haired Mariah on VH1 (been doing lots of Mariah re-evaluation in preparation for a party we're throwing, more on that soon), and, listening to it now, it holds up just as well if not better than Mimi's wonderful early singles.
The lyrics are about all of nature showing love for that special someone and while, again, I don't know much about her Gospel stuff, some of the lyrics and imagery here (or is it just me that hears "devotion" and thinks religion) recall songs of worship. It's interesting to me hearing someone who sings about God using the same language to describe a more terrestrial love.
Of course, when I was six I had no idea Amy Grant usually sang CCM and I mostly loved her voice and the awesome solo.
I was a bit worried that Tip's straight out of prison stuff might be "Dead and Gone parts 2-20". Luckily, this is very much not that. Can't wait to see what else he's got.
Things we made/some of our 25-30 guests brought to our Oscar party:
- An Eggucation (deviled eggs) - An Edumame (Edamame) - Avatarcado Relish (Guac with apples and blue food coloring) - The Brownie Side - Coco avant Pretzels (Chocolate covered pretzels) - Crazy Liver (Chicken Liver Pate) - Crazy Tarts - Ginvictus - Harry Pottered Rum - The Hurt Lager - The Hurt Latkas - Inglorious Basil Pesto - Inglorious Bas-tarts - The Princess and the Frog Legs - A Serious Amount of Cheese Balls - Tuna Avatartar - UPside Down Cake
So, because of various factors such as my new job, my computer touch pad going insane, and general laziness, I'm not gonna be able to finish this as thoroughly as I wanted. So here are the rest of my winners, distilled for maximally concentrated anger and accuracy.
Visual Effects: Avatar. If it doesn't win this it won't win anything. But it will win this.
Cinematography: Avatar seems to be the favorite, but I don't have any faith in the Academy being willing to give cinematography to something that's mostly animated. So I'm going with Robert Richardson for Inglourious Basterds, possibly Tarantino's prettiest looking movie ever.
Animated Feature: There's a line of reasoning that says Mr. Fox gets this because Up's reward is the Best Pic nom. That's just not gonna happen. Up wins this, though I'm shocked that the Princess and the Frog isn't getting more Disney Return to Glory hype, regardless of it's quality.
Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique. 100%.
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz 100%.
Best Actress: A week ago I still thought there wouldn't be enough people who liked Blind Side enough for Sandy to win. But the closer it gets the more I fall in line. It's actually not even that the competition isn't good this year, it's that I think Meryl, Carey, and Gabby will all get enough votes that none of them will be able to pull ahead of Sandra Bullock.
Best Actor: There's no reason I can see to bet against Jeff Bridges here.
Adapted Screenplay: This will probably be where they honor Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner for the former Best Picture frontrunner, the shallow, offensive, insipid, boring, stale Up in the Air. A win for In the Loop would be one of the most pleasant and shocking surprises in recent Oscar memory.
Original Screenplay: I liked all of the movies in this category, which is pretty crazy. Anyways, this is between Basterds and the Hurt Locker, and as stupid as I feel about picking Basterds for Cinematography and Writing and then Hurt Locker for picture, I just feel better picking the more talky Inglorious Basterds for a screenplay award.
Best Foreign Film: I've only seen the wonderful Un Prophete and the terrible White Ribbon, but we also have Ajami, which deals with the middle east, The Milk of Sorrow, which everyone seems to agree has no chance, and El Secreto de Sus Ojos, which is emerging into a sort of favorite because it's supposedly the most conventional and straightforward of the five, qualities which the Foreign Film voters have gone for in recent years ahead of innovation or critical acclaim. I'll buy that and go with the Argentinian entry, although I'm scared they might give it to Haneke and his ribbon.
Best Director: Even if they don't give Hurt Locker Best Pic, I'd be shocked if Kathryn Bigelow missed out on this award. She deserves it, too, and so much has been made of her potentially being the first woman to win it and the ex-husband narrative that I can't see AMPAS passing this one up.
Best Picture: Gaaaaaaawd I dunno. I'm just gonna say The Hurt Locker and be done with it. I think the backlash came too late.
60. Three 6 Mafia - "Stay Fly (ft. Young Buck, 8Ball, and MJG)" (Columbia, 2005)
There are only a few minutes left in the annual day on which it is most appropriate to celebrate Tennessee's finest (3/6 of course), so we might as well do it with this monster, which made the transition from "Stay High" to "Stay Fly" effortlessly. I was absolutely overjoyed today when, on my walk to the subway, a dude rolled past me actually blasting Three Six.
- Avatar - Stephen E. Rivkin, John Refoua, James Cameron
- District 9 - Julian Clarke
- The Hurt Locker - Bob Murawski, Chris Innis
- Inglourious Basterds - Sally Menke
- Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire - Joe Klotz
Editors. What do they do? Is it science? Is it art? Is it magic? It's a question that's forever haunted people without a film education trying to speak intelligently about the Oscars. So to help us out, we've brought in our friend Jawn Duffy, who actually sometimes edits video professionally (and should probably be doing so now instead of talking to us about it).
MaciejBasedOntheNovelMobyDickbyMelville: well Jawn, let's start with who got motherfucking snubbed
Jawn Da’vi: now I have to think about what movies came out this year
Jawn Da’vi:I really wish my category wasn't the hardest one to judge
MaciejBasedOntheNovelMobyDickbyMelville: Well then I'll start it off by suggesting two movies that had absolutely no shot at an Oscar nomination (but I certainly like more than Avatar).
MaciejBasedOntheNovelMobyDickbyMelville: Crank: High Voltage, which actually does its ADD style on purpose and is something special for it and House of the Devil, which as a horror movie is more or less ineligible for awards but has a better slow build than anything in a long time.
Jawn Da’vi: Well I should preface, that for me, I feel that editing is at it's best when I totally get lost in the world of the movie. People like to call editing "the invisible art" or whatever and that can be because there's always so much more that you don't see than what you do see (and wow, there is always so much more that you don't see). So when I judge editing, it's more about getting lost and not noticing things. Pacing is really important obviously, which is why action movies like Bourne that have recently won can be just as good as a slow burner. It's not so much about the technique, but more about the experience, which is why I love movies like Zodiac or A Serious Man, which I guess is one of my snubs, that and Parnassus
MaciejBasedOntheNovelMobyDickbyMelville: (which I still haven't seen, shame on me)
Jawn Da’vi: which I'm guessing was an absolute nightmare to edit
Jawn Da’vi: well, you have seen every other movie out there so it's ok (for now)
MaciejBasedOntheNovelMobyDickbyMelville: haha
Jawn Da’vi: but back to A Serious Man
Jawn Da’vi: I knew I'd like A Serious Man from the trailer alone. That is the most perfect trailer I have ever seen. It made me happy to call myself an editor. Which is good because that's how I go around introducing myself. Hi, I'm John Duffy, but you can call me The Cutter!
MaciejBasedOntheNovelMobyDickbyMelville: (as we move on to who should win) How much of a bloated, over-long film can be blamed on an editor? Like, if the editor of Avatar suggested that it be half an hour shorter, you figure Cameron would just be standing there, like no!
MaciejBasedOntheNovelMobyDickbyMelville: Although, wait, now that I look at it he's actually one of the editors argh.
MaciejBasedOntheNovelMobyDickbyMelville: but take that question in the abstract, I guess.
Jawn Da’vi: yeah, that movie was a mess. When you're in a movie theater and realizing how long something is, then it's just not good. A lot of that is probably Cameron's massive, facial-hair-needing head. When it comes down to it, Jimmy Camewrong is not going to want to get rid of something that he spent 18 years writing
Jawn Da’vi: like, the little seen or heard from guy that the Coens' work with seems to magically be on the same page as them
MaciejBasedOntheNovelMobyDickbyMelville: haha
Jawn Da’vi:it's almost like he's an extension of them. Which is why the realtionship between the director an editor is so important. Directors like Tarantino who work with the same editor over and over again is something that I like. There's a trust there where he knows what Sally likes to do and vice-versa.
MaciejBasedOntheNovelMobyDickbyMelville: I mean, I should note that I don't think length is Avatar's only editing problem.
Jawn Da’vi:Oh no, definitely not.
MaciejBasedOntheNovelMobyDickbyMelville: Several of its action scenes are completely disorienting in the worst way possible.
Jawn Da’vi: oh but it's an alien world so it should be right?
Jawn Da’vi: or I think it was a moon actually
Jawn Da’vi: man, I hate that movie (by the way, any defense of Avatar from me should be read as sarcasm).
MaciejBasedOntheNovelMobyDickbyMelville: noted. So which of these five is the best, you think?
Jawn Da’vi: well, I'll briefly run through the other 4
Jawn Da’vi:ok District 9
Jawn Da’vi:the first third of how this was edited had me completely freaking out. That is EXACTLY the kind of editing that I do, the connecting of ideas documentary style with broll on top, I felt legitimate while watching that. That and the Serious Man trailer made me really happy about what I've been doing with myself over the past 3.5 years
Jawn Da’vi: Inglourious Basterds I also really liked. The first scene alone, as mentioned by countless others, is exactly what film making should be. It took me a little while after that to realize what the film was trying to do, but I liked that, I liked how it turned out, and the storytelling kept me very interested throughout
Jawn Da’vi:Push, I haven't seen, but my question there is how great can the editing actually be with a title that long and ridiculous?
Jawn Da’vi:(pause for laughter)
Jawn Da’vi:OK, and finally The Hurt Locker
Jawn Da’vi:The Hurt Locker is exactly the kind of movie I was talking about in the beginning. From the first frame I was completely immersed. I'm so happy that there's no draft because if that's even a tenth of what it's like to be a modern soldier, I wouldn't even make it off the plane. I'm sure it did with many, I was physically affected watching that movie
Jawn Da’vi: Well maybe not really, but stuff was happening inside of my body
MaciejBasedOntheNovelMobyDickbyMelville: I feel like the tension in the Hurt Locker is something that us amateurs ofter give credit to the editor for.
Jawn Da’vi: that's true. I mean a tense movie is a tense movie for more reasons than the editing. But what that movie shows is that everybody from the top down all the way through post, was on the same page.
- Burma VJ: Reporter i et lukket land - dir. Anders Østergaard - The Cove - dir. Louie Psihoyos - Food, Inc. - dir. Robert Kenner - The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers - dir. Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith - Which Way Home - dir. Rebecca Cammisa
Who Will Win?: In many of the smaller categories it's foolish to pick a movie because it's the most popular or well known or has momentum. However, this is the category that only a few years ago honored March of the Penguins, so, lacking anything super-topical or about the Holocaust, I'm going to pick The Cove, which has won a few precursors and (whatever one says about its credentials as a Documentary) is pretty exciting. Everybody loves dolphins, right?
Best Documentary Short
- China's Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province - dir. Jon Alpert and Matthew O'Neill - The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner - dir. Daniel Junge - The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant - dir. Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert - Królik po berlinsku (Rabbit a la Berlin) - dir. Bartosz Konopka - Music by Prudence - dir. Roger Ross Williams
Who Will Win?: Maybe one of these is a completely virtuosic example of documentary filmmaking, but I have nothing to go by except for subject matter. And while the death count of China's Unnatural Disaster might sway voters, I'd bet on the fact that if the Recession was enough to carry Up in the Air to Oscar Nominations and some kind of supposed relevance, I'm going to bet on it taking the day here too. That's The Last Truck, yall.
- Bright Star - Janet Patterson - Coco avant Chanel - Catherine Leterrier - The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - Monique Prudhomme - Nine - Colleen Atwood - The Young Victoria - Sandy Powell
Who Got Snubbed?: For how showy its costumes are and the fact that it got noms for Best Pic, Best Director, etc, Inglourious Basterds omission is quite a shock. Bridget Von Hammersmark and Shoshana's costumes alone are awesome, not to mention the leopard print hat.
Who Should Win?: I haven't seen The Young Victoria, Coco avant Chanel, or, shockingly enough Parnassus, sorry. But Bright Star has really ill costumes that go a long way towards developing the main character. So that one.
Who Will Win?: It may be oversimplifying, but never underestimate how much they love a royal period piece, never mind a Victorian one, never mind about the actual Queen Victoria. The Young Victoria is my pick then, though a movie about Coco Chanel could be trouble.
Best Achievement in Makeup
- Il divo - Aldo Signoretti and Vittorio Sodano - Star Trek - Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow - The Young Victoria - John Henry Gordon and Jenny Shircore
Who Got Snubbed?: Go figure the Oscars not recognizing a horror movie, but Drag Me to Hell should own this. As far as things that had an actual chance, District 9's snub here is very puzzling.
Who Should Win?: I've only seen Star Trek, and wasn't particularly impressed with the makeup. It was OK, I guess.
Who Will Win?: I think this'll be the one they'll actually give to Star Trek. Good for Eric Bana, I like that dude.
Best Achievement in Art Direction
- Avatar - Rick Carter, Robert Stromberg, and Kim Sinclair - The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - David Warren, Anastasia Masaro, and Caroline Smith - Nine - John Myhre and Gordon Sim - Sherlock Holmes - Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer - The Young Victoria - Patrice Vermette and Maggie Gray
Who Got Snubbed?: See, how can Inglourious win Best Picture when it's a period piece that can't get nominated for any Costume or Art awards? Forrealtho Coraline should walk this.
Who Should Win?: I don't think Avatar doesn't deserve this because it's largely animated. I think it doesn't deserve it because its world isn't particularly original. Not having seen Parnassus or Victoria (I promise I'll get better at this when we get to the majors), I guess Holmes' Dickens by way of Steampunk bullshit is better than Nine's boring bullshit.
Who Will Win?: I was thinking Avatar's gonna win this one, because Nine is so hated and everything. But John Myhre won this award for Rob Marshall's Memoirs of a Geisha adaptation, and that was even more hated than Nine, so I'ma go out on a limb here and say it. NINE!
- Avatar - Christopher Boyes, Gary Summers, Andy Nelson, and Tony Johnson - The Hurt Locker - Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett - Inglourious Basterds - Michael Minkler, Tony Lamberti, and Mark Ulano - Star Trek - Anna Behlmer, Andy Nelson and Peter J. Devlin - Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen - Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, and Geoffrey Patterson
Best Achievement in Sound Editing
- Avatar - Christopher Boyes and Gwendolyn Yates Whittle - The Hurt Locker - Paul N.J. Ottosson - Inglourious Basterds - Wylie Stateman - Star Trek - Mark P. Stoeckinger and Alan Rankin - Up - Michael Silvers and Tom Myers
Who Should Win?: Here's the thing. I know Sound Design is important in movies and I'm definitely affected by it when I'm in theater, but I'd just be pretending if I told you I could pick good from bad. So on this count, I abstain.
Who Will Win?: I try to look for reason in these categories every year. I know mixing's the one that once in a while goes to a movie that involves music (like Ray, Dreamgirls, Chicago, even Eastwood's Bird), but that's not an issue this year. I know Editing is the one that always goes to a really loud movie, but Transformers is nominated for Mixing! I know Mixing's the one that more often goes with the Best Picture, but Transformers is nominated for Mixing! The three in the last ten that have swept both categories have been Oscar heavyweights The Bourne Ultimatum, King Kong, and The Matrix. So who the hell knows?
Yet if you're gonna win your Oscar Pool, these will probably be important, especially in this year of seemingly sure things up top. In two categories that obviously have no fear of rewarding action movies, Star Trek could be a dark horse, especially because it missed out on a Best Picture nomination to that it was kind of supposed to get with the category expansion. But I'm gonna go with The Hurt Locker for Editing, because big, real explosions and gunshots are so integral to its plot. I'll split and take Avatar for mixing, because it's gotta win some shit, right?
Best Original Score
- Avatar - James Horner - Fantastic Mr. Fox - Alexandre Desplat - The Hurt Locker - Marco Beltrami, Buck Sanders - Sherlock Holmes - Hans Zimmer - Up - Michael Giacchino
Who Should Win?: I guess one could complain that Michael Giacchino's score for Up relies too much on one theme, but it's such a great theme. Of these 5 scores, I only really remember moments from Up and Sherlock Holmes, and I remember the former much more fondly.
Who Will Win?: I think Up will take it, actually. BAFTA, Golden Globes, and Crithatics Choice all bought it, and I see no reason that AMPAS shouldn't follow up. I'd imagine James Horner could play spoiler, especially if Avatar does well overall, but I'm not gonna bet on it.
Best Original Song
- "The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart, written by T-Bone Burnett and Ryan Bingham - "Loin de Paname" from Faubourg 36, written by Reinhardt Wagner and Frank Thomas - "Take It All" from Nine, written by Maury Yeston - "Almost There" from The Princess and the Frog, written by Randy Newman - "Down in New Orleans" from The Princess and the Frog, written by Randy Newman
Who Should Win?: "The Weary Kind" is the best of these. It's not amazing, or anything, but it works in the movie. "Take It All" is the best choice from Nine, I think, but that's not saying much.
Who Will Win?: I'ma put my money on the one that's sung by the guy who's gonna win Best Actor, written by a guy who looks exactly like James Cameron and the other guy who plays a guitarist in the movie and, in real life, has the same name as George Clooney in Up in the Air and is a bull rider turned songwriter. That's "The Weary Kind". It just seems so Oscary (especially with Randy Newman vote split, everybody hating Nine, and the other song being from a French movie that a total of 4 people in this country have seen).
We're just a few days from the Oscars, and just a few days after I finished talking way too much about movies I actually liked this year. Sadly, there's no other way to do it. So here we present our Oscar preview which, do to me having a job, is gonna be a hell of a thing to try and finish on time, never mind do with any amount of effort. Nevertheless, I feel like it's something we have to do. So the Oscar Death Race is going to be a sprint this year, but here we go, starting as we did last year with the non-Documentary Shorts, which might very well be playing in a theater near you as we speak.
Best Short Film, Live Action
- The Door - dir. Juanita Wilson - Istället för abrakadabra (Instead of Abracadabra) - dir. Patrik Eklund - Kavi - dir. Greg Helvey - Miracle Fish - dir. Luke Doolan - The New Tenants - dir. Joachim Back
Who Should Win?: By far my favorite of the five was Australia's Miracle Fish (which you can stream here, about a bullied kid who falls asleep at school and wakes up to find it deserted. It's not perfect, but the middle section in which our hero walks through the empty building is really great filmmaking.
Who Will Win?: I think that we can disregard The New Tenants, a silly little bit of violence with Vincent D'Onofrio getting emotional and Kevin Corrigan channeling Walken. I also think and pray we can disregard Instead of Abracadabra. I know everyone is saying that it's similar in style to Napoleon Dynamite, but I didn't think it was possible that a Swedish short film nominated for an Oscar could be this similar to Napoleon Dynamite.
So that leaves the two "serious" entries: The Door, which is about Chernobyl, and Kavi, which is about Debt Bondage in India. (I do think films being reduced to their subject matter sucks, but these are the Oscars). I'm split on whether the latter will be helped or hurt by its similarity in setting (and texture, it's mud not poop in this case, but it looks similar) to Slumdog Millionaire (that movie seems so long ago). In the end, I'll wager that it helps, and the main character's likability elevates it over the thoroughly bleak Irish/Ukranian film. That's Kavi for the win.
Best Short Film, Animated
- French Roast - dir. Fabrice Joubert - Granny O'Grimm's Sleeping Beauty - dir. Nicky Phelan - La dama y la muerte (The Lady and the Reaper) - dir. Javier Recio Garcia - Logorama - dir. François Alaux, Herve de Crecy, and Ludovic Houplain - Wallace and Gromit in 'A Matter of Loaf and Death' - dir. Nick Park
Who Should Win?: Probably Wallace and Gromit again, but I'd very much also like to praise La dama y la muerte, which is a jaunty little picture that seems to be of the opinion that if an old person wants to die, you should just let them die.
Who Will Win?: Nick Park already has three Oscars in this category (and one for Animated Feature), but I just don't see them giving it to anyone else, especially in a year when there's no hand-drawn option and no Pixar option either. Logorama is the only other noteworthy thing here is Logorama, an action cartoon almost entirely made up of corporate logos. It's conceptually interesting for about a minute, and then it's ruined by cop/Tarantinoesque dialogue that doesn't at all work as satire, so must just be written by idiots. French Roast and Granny O'Grimm are pleasant and shrill respectively, but both are minor even for this category. Wallace and Gromit all the way.
(Cartoon Brew has links to view all the animated shorts online here)
