WDR Goes Out To The Movies!

Unfortunately, without the help of Frank DeCaro...


As we mentioned previously, yesterday was the Oscars. There has been volumes and volumes written about Oscar's imperfections in determining quality cinema (I mean, look at this list of directors without Oscars: Kubrick, Kurosawa, Lumet, Altman, Hitchcock, Bergman...and that's just off the top of my head), so we're not going to rehash old mistakes, like fucking Titanic and it's half-assed love story with sorry-looking effects over the greatest crime thriller since Chinatown in L.A. Confidential. I'm sure the other members of WDR have their own past grievances to file, and they can make their voices heard in the comments section.

As for the ceremony, kudos to John Stewart for a ripping monologue and keeping the show humming along, despite the presence of numerous momentum-killing montages. Of course, that wasn't his fault, and neither was the feeling that they seriously rushed the last 15 minutes of the show. In this post, though, we just wanted to mention a few of the oversights of not only this year's committee, but also some mentions that have been absent in critical discussion as well.

Best Animated Film You're talking to a guy here who absolutely loves penguins. Enough with the goddamn penguins already! Seriously, the fact that a movie as well received as The Simpsons Movie losing out on a nomination to a surfing penguins picture, well, it angers up the blood. ANGER...RISING...

Best Visual Effects I think any movie in which you can see the goddamn frame rates refreshing should automatically disqualify a film from this category--and the fact that Transformers could be charitably described as a cinematic war crime doesn't help its case either. Instead, I think that this category should go with the films that do "more with less". A perfect example of this was The Fountain last year, which managed to show some of the most beautiful images ever captured on film, without the aid of computers at all. This year, I think the honor should have gone to Sunshine, an otherwise better-than-average sci-fi/philosophy flick that greatly benefited from spectacular visuals that will stay with you for weeks afterwards.

Best Cinematography I believe Oscar chose wisely here, but I have to say I was disappointed with the lack of a nomination for The Darjeeling Limited. The scenic vistas were utilized so well that the Indian countryside was almost another character in the film, to borrow a cliché. When one of the characters remarks that he'll never forget the smell of the country, you can totally identify with that sentiment.



Best Song AND Best Score First of all, three songs from one movie? The Academy must really have it in for Eddie Vedder, who after all did win the Golden Globe for "Guaranteed", though you probably could have picked any track from his soundtrack to Into The Wild. It was one thing to overlook the sublime "Man of the Hour" from Big Fish, but this just smacks of assholism. And of course, you have to give it to the Academy for disqualifying at the last minute the one score that everyone was talking about, the one Jonny Greenwood did for There Will Be Blood. The best part of the disqualification reasoning was that Greenwood had already used some of the music before, a piece THAT HE WROTE and was performed once. But here we'll give credit to a score that kept things interesting and kept the viewer on guard throughout a magnificent film.

The Overlooked in General Zodiac was totally shut out, but David Fincher proves that you'll have to watch everything he does. The performances were stellar, and for a thriller in which we (should) know the ending, he kept it remarkably dramatic. Another film that was only given token appreciation was Eastern Promises. If you want to talk about tight filmmaking, you'll need to show this film in that intro class.

And finally...


We all love the Coens around here. In fact, we probably could do a feature in which we rated the 10 best Coen Brother pictures, and we'd piss each other off with our votes for 8-10--they're that great. But the best picture of last year was the absolutely epic and stunning There Will Be Blood. Whereas No Country For Old Men had its charms, such as its tight plotting, great suspense, and wonderful little funny moments, its theme of chance being the ultimate arbiter of everything falls flat. In contrast, in TWBB we see the epic rise of man, but at the ultimate cost of his soul. Plainview's drive to compete was his sole obsession in life, and a a result, he loses his humanity in the process. Trust me, fifteen years from now, that's going to be the film everyone remembers.

Besides, I liked No Country For Old Men better when it was called Fargo. At least that movie was willing to laugh at the absurdity of life.