Back. AGAIN. Here are some thoughts on the Oscars.

So I'm back. AGAIN. Perhaps this will be a blog I write in yearly... Seriously though, I would really and truly like to start writing for this page regularly. Whether that happens or not remains to be seen, but ultimately, I'd love to be able to get to the point where I can join Rotten Tomatoes and some other sites like that. That way my insignificant, meaningless opinions would be slightly harder for the general public to avoid.

MOVING ALONG...due to the fact that we are several days removed from that motion picture industry wankfest known as the Oscars, I figured that would be as good a place as any to start dispensing my snippets of semi-ill informed wisdom.

Firstly...I know a lot of people I am friends with thought There Will Be Blood deserved a sweep, but I have to say I'm so happy to see the Coen Brothers go home with a bunch of awards, despite the fact that their acceptance speeches seemed a tad apathetic. I really can't count on one hand the number of Coen brothers movies I consider to be brilliant, and although they've recieved some consideration before (mostly in the screenplay category), Sunday was by far the most they have ever been honored at this particular ceremony.

Don't get me wrong...PT Anderson made a great great movie. And although I personally consider No Country to be the stronger movie, I also believe there can be an argument made that the Coens were just due. I know people aren't a fan of that logic (most recently for Denzel Washington's much debated win for Training Day and the almighty Martin Scorsese's award last year for The Departed). I think there is SOME validity to that reasoning though, particularly because the Coen brothers are much more prolific (and in my opinion much more consistant) than Anderson.

Javier Bardem's win for No Country was probably the closest thing to a no brainer for the evening. Perhaps this is high praise, but I think you would have to reach all the way back to perhaps The Silence Of Lambs to find a villain as memorable as his Anton. On somewhat of a sidebar however, I thought one of the most interesting parts of that movie was the lack of a clear moral center. Anton is most certainly the villain, but I would call Josh Brolin's Llewellyn an anti-hero at worst. At best, his ethics are certainly sketchy.

Likewise, Daniel Day Lewis for There Will Be Blood was an obvious one. Despite the fact that I didn't think it was the ABSOLUTE best flick all year, there can be no denying Lewis is absolutely amazing in it. He is by turns charismatic and completely bat shit nuts. He deserved this award more than Blood deserved best picture in my opinion because when the movie works, it works BECAUSE OF HIM. At over 2 and a half hours, Blood is definitely a bulky movie, and Lewis is a good enough actor to pretty much carry the whole thing on his shoulders.

I have not seen either of the films that actresses were honored for as of yet, hence I will not be discussing that now. Perhaps once I see both of them, if I feel so compelled, I will write about them in a future entry.

The documentary category was filled with some great entries this year, and although my personal allegiance was with No End In Sight, a horrifying indictment of the war in Iraq, the Oscar went Taxi To The Dark Side. Although I have yet to see it, it looks excellent, and also appears to cover some of the same subject matter of No End, albeit from more of a personal, and less of a policy related standpoint. All in all, it's very refreshing to see some left leaning documentaries coming out that don't share Michael Moore's penchant for hyperbole. (although Sicko was also nominated.)

One of the more disputed categories, at least among people I know, was the Best Original Screenplay win for Juno. Honestly, I come down somewhere in the middle here. Do I think the novelty of a former stripper writing a cutesy movie about teen pregnancy was a factor in the win? Sure. Do I think the dialogue in the movie tried way too hard to be clever at times? Absolutely. Am I personally offended by Diablo Cody's win, as several people I know seemed to be? Not really. I freely admit to not having seen any of the other nominees in this category yet, but judging by trailers and reviews, none of them (with the possible exception of the odd looking Ryan Gosling vehicle Lars and The Real Girl) seem to be treading any seriously new ground. Michael Clayton in particular looked to me to be a bit of a retread of any number of courtroom themed films and I was genuinely surprised at how many nominations it garnered at this and a bunch of other awards shows. As far as the ACTUAL quality of the movie, get back to me when I've actually seen it. Until then, I freely admit to this all being hearsay.

Well that's about it I guess. I do notice that more and more in the past few years, the Academy's nominations seem to be falling more and more in line with my own personal taste. I'm not sure if that's a statement about the evolution of my taste or the taste of the Academy.

Here's to another year of being a movie nerd!