Well, this will be my first non-Oscar party year in five years, and I'm going to have withdrawals.






ETA: I take that back ... there was one year in that 5-year span that I watched at home alone.


We all know not to try and capture lightning in a bottle twice ... but when we do eventually have a Swanker Oscar Party, I wholeheartedly recommend the costume variety ... where guests are encouraged to come as nominated movies or characters from.

This year, you'll all be missing my drag turn as The Queen.

I was invited to a swanky party this year, but had to decline due to NASCAR. We should be back to mom & dad's place in time for pizza and Oscars with the family. That is how we usually watch them. Mom orders the pizza when Dad & Ubergeek cell in their ETA from Fontana (I don't always go to the race). iSm - you want to come? we can call you, too!

Well, having watched Babel last night I have now filled out quite a few categories. It won't have much of an impact on my preferences, though, since there is pretty much nothing I liked about it. The only film nominated for a major award that I think is completely unworthy (for the most part, even if I don't think they were in the top five, it isn't unreasonable that others would).

So, my rankings from actual nominations (best to least):

Best Picture
1. The Departed
2. Little Miss Sunshine
3. Letters from Iwo Jima
4. The Queen
27. Babel

(My pick for best picture, Children of Men, wasn't even nominated.)

Best Actor
1. Peter O'Toole - Venus
2. Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland
3. Leonardo DiCaprio - Blood Diamond
Unseen - Ryan Gosling - Half Nelson
Unssen - Will Smith - Pursuit of Happyness

Best Actress
1. Penelope Cruz - Volver
2. Judi Dench - Notes on a Scandal
3. Kate Winslet - Little Children
4. Helen Mirren - The Queen
5. Meryl Streep - The Devil Wears Prada

Best Supporting Actor
1. Jackie Earle Haley - Little Children
2. Alan Arkin - Little Miss Sunshine
3. Mark Wahlberg - The Departed
4. Djimon Hounsou - Blood Diamond
5. Eddie Murphy - Dreamgirls

Best Supporting Actress
1. Jennifer Hudson - Dreamgirls
2. Abigail Breslin - Little Miss Sunshine
3. Cate Blanchett - Notes on a Scandal
4. Rinko Kinkuchi - Babel
5. Adriana Barraza - Babel

Best Director1. Paul Greengrass - United 93
2. Martin Scorcese - The Departed
3. Clint Eastwood - Letters from Iwo Jima
4. Alejandro González Iñárritu - Babel
5. Stephen Frears - The Queen

Best Original Screenplay
1. Michael Arndt - Little Miss Sunshine
2. Guillermo del Toro - Pan's Labyrinth
3. Iris Yama****a - Letters from Iwo Jima
4. Peter Morgan - The Queen
5. Guillermo Arriaga - Babel

Best Adapted Screenplay
1. Alfonso Cuarón, Timothy J. Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fregus, Hawk Ostby - Children of Men
2. Patrick Marber - Notes on a Scandal
3. Todd Field, Tom Parrata - Little Children
4. William Monahan - The Departed (loss of points for adapting a movie)
36. Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer, Todd Phillips - Borat (major loss of points for being essentially an unscripted movie; this isn't "best outline")

Best Cinematography
1. Emmanuel Lubeski - Children of Men
2. Guillermo Navarro - Pan's Labyrinth
3. Wally Pfister - The Prestige
4. Dick Pope - The Illusionist
Unseen - Vilos Zsigmond - The Black Dahlia

Best Art DirectionI've seen four out of five nominations but I don't even know what is being evaluated when you say "art direction." Is that set design?

Best Costume Designi
1. Patricia Field - The Devil Wears Prada
2. Chung Man Yee - The Curse of the Golden Flower
3. Sharen Davis - Dreamgirls
4. Consolata Boyle - The Queen
Unseen - Milena Canonero - Marie Antoinette

Best Sound Mixing
I've seen all five nominees but again can't really form an opinion since it generally isn't something I notice unless it is really, really bad.

Best Achievement in Editing
1. Clare Douglas, Richard Pearson, Christopher Rouse - United 93
2. Thelma Shoonmaker - The Departed
3. Steven Rosenblum - Blood Diamond
4. Douglas Crise, Stephen Mirrione - Babel
5. Alfonso Cuarón, Alex Rodriguez - Children of Men (I'm sure the editing is fantastic but you lose psychological points when your movie is most famous for not editing).

Best Sound Editing
See Best Sound Mixing (saw five of five)

Best Visual Effects
1. Pirates of the Caribbean
2. Superman Returns
3. Poseidon

No strong feelings here, but I thought the effects in Superman Returns and Poseidon were substandard.

Best Make-Up
1. Pan's Labyrinth
2. Apocalypto
3. Click

Best Song
Saw all five nominations but don't have specific memory of any of them.

Best Score
1. Javier Navarette - Pan's Labyrinth
4. Phillip Glass - Notes on a Scandal
Unseen - The Good German

The other two nominations go somewhere between 1 and 4 but I do'nt have specific memory of noticing the score. Pan's I do and it was good, Notes' I do, and it was bad.

Best Short Film, Animated
Only saw The Little Matchgirl and was not particularly impressed.

Best Short Film, Live Action
Saw none.

Best Short Documentary
Saw none.

Best Feature Documentary
Only saw An Inconvenient Truth and while it may be the most important of the group, I don't think it was particularly well made.

Best Foreign Language Film
Only saw Pan's Labyrinth and it is worthy. Have only heard wonderful things about The Lives of Others but haven't seen it myself yet.

Best Animated Feature
1. Happy Feet
2. Cars
3. Monster House

While the number of animated films has boomed in recent years the number of quality efforts hasn't really seen a similar boom. I'd be in favor of dumping this category.

I agree with Alex that the best picture of the year was Children of Men. I'm shocked that neither it nor its director received a nomination. The Oscars are bogus as indicators of cinema quality.



That said, a bunch of us saw a screening last night of all the nominated Live-Action and Animated Short Subjects - - and there were some incredible gems in there. I wish there were some way for regular folks to see these films ... and I now regret not going out of my way to find the nominated shorts from previous years.

We ran a miniature Swankies Ceremony afterwards, and came up with winners in both categories. If you find any way to see these films, don't hesitate to go out of your way.

Best Live-Action Short Subject: The Saviour - a funny morality tale involving modern Mormon missionaries in the U.K.

Best Animated Short Subject: The Danish Poet - an hysterical and charming tale of love and fate and chance and oddness in the wonderful world of Scandanavia.


Honorable Mention must go to the Live-Action short West Bank Story, a laugh-out-loud riot spoofing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict via the stylings of West Side Story.






(and Mr. Wise is the winner of two Oscars himself... - Betty Davis, 1987 Academy Awards ceremony)

I just thought of something. If they were Mormon, wouldn't they have been passing out copies of The Book of Mormon and not the Holy Bible? Or do they do both? Just curious.

I believe they were actually in Australia - and "Mormon-like" missionaries

Yes, it was Australian (accents and credits). They probably didn't want to actually use the Book of Mormon for fear of pissing them off. They did use the term "Elder" which to my limited knowledge is only used by Mormons.

Elder is pretty common in various denominational circles. Among the big ones I blieve that both Methodists and Presbyterians have them, and Jehovah's Witnesses do as well. I believe that the various descendents of the America Restoration movement (e.g., Church of Christ) all have it as well.

Don't konw what role the position plays from faith to faith though.

But, as far as I know, Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses are the only two groups that proscletize door-to-door. And the guys in the movie were not like Jehovahs.

And it's a become a commonly known thread for young Mormon missionary men to sew some serious wild oats when away from home on their missionarying.

I have no doubt that they were Mormon or "Mormon-like" as that the is the stereotypical image of evangelicals send abroad (though JW's do that too). Just letting CP know that the word and position are more broad than she tought.