In case you missed it, here’s my segment from News Channel 8′s talk show News Talk Live.
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Oscars
I’ll be on News Channel 8′s Let’s Talk Live show with award winning journalists Natasha Barrett and Doug McKelway. We’ll be discussing tomorrow’s Oscar Nominations. I’ll admit I haven’t followed this year’s race at all, so it’ll be mildly amusing to see what gets nominated tomorrow. I do think the race will come down to Avatar Vs. The Hurt Locker with Avatar winning. Top 10 nominations will be Precious, Avatar, The Hurt Locker, District 9, Up In The Air, A Serious Man, Invictus, Inglourious Basterds, UP, I’m still holding out hope that Star Trek somehow gets in. It’s clearly the best movie of 2009.
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Ok, here is the Oscar Ballot. I’m not going to live blog this show. I’m watching Prom Night (the new version) and will follow that up with either Burn After Reading or this Chop Soki movie called Chocolate. But I did at least set the DVR, so maybe the mood will strike me to speed watch it later tonight. In the meantime here is the official Oscar Ballot with my picks – without virbage. I do not think Slumdog will sweep everything this year, my sense is that everything is weak enough that they’ll try and spread it around. Since Slumdog is a lock for Best Picture and Director the other films will win in the technical categories. There’s no drama this year.
BEST PICTURE
[ ] The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
[ ] Frost/Nixon
[ ] Milk
[ ] The Reader
[ X ] Slumdog Millionaire
Although after seeing Milk this weekend, I’d really like to see an upset.
DIRECTOR
[ ] David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
[ ] Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
[ ] Gus Van Sant, Milk
[ ] Stephen Daldry, The Reader
[ X ] Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
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Ok, I can’t believe it, but I’m actually following through. I’m here in Georgetown at AMC’s Oscar Screening event. I seriously doubt I’ll stay for the entire day, but I’m at least going to catch Milk and The Reader this morning. I’ve seen all the other Best Picture noms. I’ll post an update after Milk.
Update
I’m back from the AMC Event, I bailed after The Reader – which is one of the most boring and pretentious films I’ve seen in years. A lot of folks in the audience were saying they couldn’t believe that movie is up for Best Picture. Based on conversations I listened in on, no one liked it. I think this movie is proof that the award system is broken, if they felt the need to nominate their token Holocaust film, then they should have selected The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. Milk on the other hand is a fantastic film, I actually cried at the end. I normally hate James Franco, but he’s really good here, should have gotten a supporting actor nomination, and Penn is great as always – even though I can never get past Spicole. This year’s Oscar race is just, awful. The only two films that deserve to be there are Slumdog and Milk. Frost/Nixon and The Reader are terrible, and Buttons is just too damn long, emotionless and pointless. But I did like Buttons well enough to put it on my top 10 list this year, I just don’t think it’s a film that has any rewatchable value to it. As for the event itself, it was surprisingly nice. Had a sold out audience, the free popcorn was a good little bonus – even though I’m not really a fan of Popcorn, so I bought the awesome chicken tenders. I took some photos and will post those in a few minutes. I think they made a programming mistake in, that Slumdog should have come after The Reader instead of Buttons, but then you’d have Buttons and Frost back to back which wouldn’t have been better.
But everything came crashing down leaving the theater. When you go into the parking garage, the sign clearly says $7.00 in big bold letters. But in the fine print, it says only up to 4 hrs with theater validation. Anything after that it’s $10 a FREAKING HOUR! So I had to pay $20 to park. Which is bad enough, but I have the feeling a lot of people in the theater are like me and think it’s $7 and are going to come out of there tonight and get hit with $80 and $90 parking fees. This really ruined an otherwise great event. As for me, I will NEVER attend another event at AMC Georgetown as long as this parking policy is in place. There used to be a lot across the street that was $5 all day and theater parking WAS $7 all day. Without competition they are price gouging people.
Photos
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Update #2
Just spoke with the AMC reps and they assured me that the maximum for the Garage is $20, so people won’t get stuck
paying $80 and $90 parking. That is good to know, because the guy I was talking with kept saying it was $10 an hour and didn’t mention a max rate. So I may give AMC Georgetown another try, because I do think it’s a great theater, they just need to do something about the parking situation. It’s weird being back in DC, when I was in LA, all screenings were totally free with parking covered, but let’s face it, all the press screening rooms in LA are like a hundred years old and not really pleasant environments. Here in DC everything is modern, nice stadium seating, great sound, good food…
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After I said I wouldn’t watch it, I did tivo it and watched most of it, it cut off at 3 hours. After 80 years you’d think they figure out how to do the damn show in under 3 hrs! So I didn’t catch the last few awards. I fast forwarded over all the fluff and just watched the award announcements and the musical performances. Everything from Enchanted was AWFUL, I loved the Raise Up performance and Once performance. It was surreal watching because I’ve been to events at the Kodak theater on several occasions and half the people nominated I’ve met and interviewed in the past. As predicted no real surprises last night, other than Atonement almost getting blanked in all the technical categories. But getting best score? I thought the music in Atonement was one of the reasons I loathed that movie. Here’s the complete list.
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The Oscars are tonight and somehow I just can’t seem to care. Last year was a really lackluster year for films as evidenced by the fact that Michael Clayton one of the most convoluted boring films that I’ve ever walked out on is nominated for best picture. Is it me or does it seem like there is a noticeable lack of buzz for this year’s awards race? Is because the film’s nominated are kind of “meh?” Or did the three month long writers strike take the micky out of everything? I don’t know, but I’m not enthused. Granted I pretty much never watch award shows anyway, but tonight I don’t know. I’ll Tivo it and will watch Across the Universe on Blu-ray before I catch a few minutes of tonight’s show. There’s no way I could watch it live so I have to give my DVR a good 2 hr head start before I even think about turning it on. With that said here are my picks. I really don’t expect any surprises tonight. But I would love to see Juno pull an upset and Once get best song. While I liked Enchanted I thought the music in it SUCKED and can’t believe it got three freaking music nominations and Once only got one – and for the worst song in the film.
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I was going to post this yesterday, but the Heath Ledger tragedy took priority and somehow talking about the Oscar race after his death seemed a little weird. I have to say that while I’m not enthused with this year’s selections, I agree with most of them. The only rant that I would have is Atonement and Michael Clayton Best Picture? Really? Does Cate Blanchett have blackmail material on the voters? She’s the new Tom Hanks, if she farts on screen she’ll get an Oscar Nomination. I hate Cate Blanchett, but I will admit she was strong in Elizabeth – in all her pasty face glory. Those were two of the worst films that I have seen all year. Love to see Juno got love. Atonement for best musical score? Are these people tone deaf? It was like nails on a chalkboard. I DESPISED the music in Atonement. Enchanted had THREE songs nominated and only one from Once? They couldn’t give Eddie Vedder a nod for his song from Into The Wild? Really? I liked Enchanted, didn’t love it and think it’s a tad overrated, but I thought the music was AWFUL and not that movie’s strong point. Where’s King of Kong for best Documentary? For those that care, here is the complete list.
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