Oscars

We now turn to what I term the “major” technical awards. While I recognize that the vast majority of moviegoers couldn’t care less about evaluating a film’s editing or production design, I honestly believe that the following categories are critical to a picture’s success (or, in some cases, failure). Do I have any evidentiary basis for this belief? No. That’s why I chose not to attend film school, so I can continue making bald claims about cinematic values without having any educational pedigree with which to defend them. It’s more fun this way. Alright, let’s get to it, starting out with most important technical award of the entire ceremony.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Avatar – Mauro Fiore
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – Bruno Delbonnel
The Hurt Locker – Barry Ackroyd
Inglourious Basterds – Robert Richardson
The White Ribbon – Christian Berger Read More

Hey, turns out the Oscars are in less than a week! Given that the Manifesto’s official raison d’être is to provide detailed analysis of every category of the Academy Awards, only I’ve yet to publish a single post-nomination prediction, I should probably pick up the pace. As a result, we’re instituting a Five-Post Plan this week, whereby I evaluate each of the 21 categories across, well, five separate posts. Given my style of writing (which could charitably be described as “less than brief”), such a task is about as difficult as the Patronus Charm, but duty calls.

For the first installment, I’ll be focusing on some of the “minor” technical awards. (Benefit of having a blog readership of fewer than 100 people: No disgruntled costume designer is going to send me a letter bomb after I characterize her life’s work as “minor”.) I’ll move on to “major” technical awards next, followed by the screenplays, then the acting categories, and finally Best Picture and Best Director. Of course, this is all theoretical, as it’s possible my Legal Writing professor will randomly assign a 5,000-word memorandum in the middle of the week, but I’m aiming high.

Let’s get to it. Read More

What could the Manifesto’s Oscar nomination predictions possibly have to do with the classic television show “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”? I shall explain.

One of my favorite things to do as I walk through life is to make references to my favorite movies and TV shows whenever possible. It is, I find, one of the ways in which I add value to the world. For example, one of my proudest moments at my old job occurred when I pretended to stumble into a meeting and mock-screamed, “It’s O.K., I’m here, we can start the meeting now!”. My buddy Pat recognized the reference to Anchorman. He laughed. It was funny.

Alright, maybe you had to be there, but the point is that my brain tends to operate on this level, and I know I’m not the only one – everyone appreciates a well-timed movie reference. Of course, I recognize that, if abused, this technique can go from “amusing” to “tedious” to “I’m going to kill your family if you quote ‘Seinfeld” one more time”. (Judd Apatow recognized this as well, which is why for his brilliant TV show “Undeclared” he created a character who spoke exclusively in movie quotes and drove everyone around him completely crazy.) But for the most part, whilst in conversation, the spontaneous delivery of a pertinent movie reference constitutes an incredibly high form of humor. Like dick and fart jokes. Read More

In the words of See-Threepio, here we go again.

The nominations for the eighty-second annual Academy Awards will be released this Tuesday morning (by Anne Hathaway!), meaning Oscar season is officially upon us. As Hubie Brown might ask, what does that mean? Well, in theory, it means that the Manifesto will kick into high gear over the next month and generate detailed, category-specific posts, each laden with cogent analysis, prescient predictions, and my trademark “Oh great, he just made another fucking Harry Potter reference” witticisms. In practice, it’s entirely possible that my brain will short-circuit while trying to balance my blogging responsibilities with my academic duties, and my family will stage an intervention and fit me with an electronic collar that zaps me with 500 volts whenever I even think about the Oscars. We’ll see what happens – it’s really 50-50.

Alright, before I get to my nomination predictions, I feel obliged to address one of the ballsiest decisions the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has ever made, and no, I’m not talking about selecting Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin to co-host the show (terrific move, by the way). Earlier this year, the Academy announced that it was expanding the Best Picture category from the usual five nominees to a more hospitable 10. In historical terms, this was akin to FDR deciding, “Screw it, just because the first 31 presidents respected the unwritten rule of two term limits doesn’t mean I’m leaving the White House”. For anyone who follows the movie industry, this was, to say the least, a big deal. But the question is, was it a good decision?

The answer: No. But not for the reason you might think. Read More

NOMINEES

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Frost/Nixon

Milk

The Reader

Slumdog Millionaire

WILL WIN

Twenty categories later, we’ve finally arrived at the big prize, and the suspense is … er, is there any suspense? Like, at all? At this point, I feel like the 2008 Best Picture race is more of a sure thing than the Iraqi election in 2002, when Saddam Hussein won 100% of the vote because no other candidates were allowed on the ballot. As such, the question isn’t “Which movie is going to win Best Picture?” but “Is there any challenger with a shot in hell of defeating Slumdog Millionaire?”. Read More