2009 Academy Awards

Yes, its been a while since you have heard from the award winning staff at CleggThis. We'll save you the poor excuses about our absence. Let's get to it. Last night was the 2009 Academy Awards ceremony, and luckily the entertainment writers at CleggThis have seen a decent amount of the movies that were being honored, specifically Slumdog Millionaire, The Reader, Milk and The Wrestler. As many of you may already know, Slumdog took home the cake last night, in fact, they took home the ice cream, apple pie AND the cake last night, but was it the best movie? Below CleggThis will outline their thoughts on who should have won, along with hopefully some colorful commentary.

BEST EDITING:
This one is near and dear to me since it is what I do for a living. Chris Dickens really did a great job on this one. I liked his use of the strobe shots and they way he cut together the slums portion of the movie, which was shot with up to 5 digital cameras. One could give kudos to Milk in editing as well, since I think they did a fantastic job of working in old archive footage, so much that sometimes it was hard to tell what was archive and what was new footage. But as far as overall editing goes, Slumdog had no real adversary's here.









BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Once again, Slumdog wins over what I consider a pretty stacked category. As I stated before, the slums portion of the movie was a home run as far as editing, and the camera work only magnifies that. Or maybe its vice versa here, either way you look at it, both the camera and editing outcomes of this one portion of the movie make them worthy winners of an Oscar. The Dark Knight, shooting a portion of their film in IMAX (especially the opening scene), would also have been a good choice and from what I have seen from Benjamin Button they did some amazing stuff as well.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:
You really didn't think CleggThis was going to agree with EVERYTHING that won last night, did you? From what I hear Penelope Cruz was fantastic, but I haven't seen it, not do I imagine I will anytime soon. In fact, I don't even know what the movie was called. What I DO know is that Marisa Tomei should have walked away with her second Oscar in this category (we all remember here in My Cousin Vinny.) As you will read on, The Wrestler is on CleggThis' must see list. The words that I describe this film are believable and honest. Tomei plays her role as an aging stripper with ease. So much so that I wouldn't be surprised to see her on a weekday night at Mac Too's in Billerica.








BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:
Does anyone out there really think Heath Ledger should not have won this? I didn't think so. Brilliant. And I highly doubt that this was a sympathy vote either. He would have won regardless. I have seen some scenes from Doubt with Philip Seymour Hoffman that would have given him the Oscar, but only if the Dark Knight had never been made.







BEST ACTRESS:
I can only make comments on movies I have seen, and I have seen The Reader, and Kate Winslet didn't deserve to win. Yes she was good, but she wasn't great. In fact, she really should have been in the supporting actress category, and even then she wouldn't have been as good as Tomei. I heard Winslet was outstanding in Revolutionary Road, and maybe she should have nominated for that. As I stated before, I have seen some scenes from Doubt, and from what I say Meryl Streep should have taken this one. Although I had a funny feeling Anne Hatheway might be a surprise since I have seen scenes from that and she seemed to be pretty good.


BEST ACTOR:
This is where the awards got it just plain wrong. I have seen Milk, and yes, Sean Penn was good. But Mickey Rourke turned in what can only be described as THE performance of 2008. I guess when I look at movies and actors I determine if I give a shit what happens to them. In Milk, while I had hoped Harvey Milk succeeded, in the end, I am not quite sure it would have made a difference. I didn't have any "buy-in" with Milk. In The Wrestler, I was intrigued from start to finish what happened to Randy "The Ram." If you haven't seen it, when you do see it take a mental note of the deli scenes and you will see what I am talking about. I really think Sean Penn got a vote more for a post Proposition 8 California then for his performance, and I think the Academy wanted to give him a forum to campaign for the issue, which I agree is an important political issue. But it should have never trumped what Rourke did.

BEST DIRECTOR:
So can you tell yet which movie I thought was really good? I think Danny Boyle did a great job on Slumdog, but I thought there was some holes in the story telling (which to his defense may have come more from the script) and his actors turned adequate performances. To his credit, there were 3 actors who played each role of the boy and girl, so to be able to get a seamless performance for one character and 3 actors is grounds for some accolades. But Darren Aronofsky, who by the way wasn't even nominated, did some things that I thought were great. One, he obviously created a, environment that turned out 2 great performances (Rourke and Tomei), plus he did this one thing that I thought was genius. There are times during the film where the camera just follows Rourke walking. Not in front, or the side, but from the back. hand held camera, just walking directly behind "The Ram." For whatever reason I just thought this was a unique way to follow the character.


BEST PICTURE:
You don't need a diploma from MIT to figure out what movie I thought was the best, again, not even up for nomination. But hey, I guess that is what is great about movies, music, books, TV and the arts in general. Its all about what you like. I liked Slumdog, I really did, but The Wrestler just somehow struck a chord to me. It was just plain good. As I said before, it was believable and honest. Honest is really the word the sums it up for me.

Hope you enjoyed our latest entry from the world of CleggThis. Feel free to comment on what you thought were the best movies this year, or at least ones you want to see. I have no doubt you will disagree with me on some, if not all, of my thoughts, but either way, I look forward to hearing them.