Reaction to the 2007 Academy Award Nominations

Ever since I was a kid I have been in love with movies, and by default have been fascinated by the Academy Awards.  Here is my $0.2 cents on the nominations that were announced today.....

All of the Best Picture nominees were great BUT I was very unhappy to see that The Diving Bell and the Butterfly didn’t make the top 5.  I considered it to be the best film I saw hands down in 2007.  While I’ve read other blogs that bemoaned his inclusion, I was actually glad to see Jason Reitman get a Best Director nomination for Juno.  I was a huge fan of Thank You For Smoking and loved Juno as well.  I really look forward to what he is going to do next.  For Best Actor, I was delighted to see that Viggo Mortensen was nominated.  He was incredible in Eastern Promises and I’m so glad he got the recognition.  I was pretty surprised that Tommy Lee Jones got nominated for In The Valley of Elah.  For weeks now I’ve been reading the numerous Oscar prognostication blogs and keeping up with the critics awards and never saw much mention of him at all for Best Actor.  This came as a real surprise.  I also didn’t think that many people saw In the Valley of Elah, but obviously enough people did.  In the Best Actress catagory I was thrilled to see Laura Linney get a nomination, as she is one of the most consistent actresses working today.  She is excellent in just about everything she’s in.  I was surprised to see that Cate Blanchett get nominated for Elizabeth: The Golden Age since the film was such a disappointment.  In the Best Supporting Actor race I was somewhat surprised to see Phillip Seymor Hoffman get the nomination for Charlie Wilson’s War, as his work in Before the Devil Knows Your Dead was much better and certainly had more depth.  The Best Supporting Actress nominees were pretty much what everyone expected.  As for the screenwriting categories, I’m THRILLED that 4 female screenwriters are nominated this year, including Sarah Polley who doesn’t seem to seek out publicity and usually flies below the radar!!!!  I hope that all of these ladies continue to write great, challenging and complex roles for women! 

I’ll post my Oscar predictions later on when the awards are much closer. 

2 Comments:

1. You actually see enough current releases to have an opinion about the Oscars? Astonishing!

   The only new releases this year I thought were really great were _Hot Fuzz_, _Lake of Fire_, and _Persepolis_, so I guess I’m kind of marginalized in this kind of discussion. Not to mention that half the time I’d rather go see Mr. Atoz and jump in the Yesterday Machine rather than bother with new films…

   Posted by Jack Maxfield on 02/09 at 10:46 PM

2. My advice about new films is to just be picky about what you see.  This has actually been a great year for films though.

   Posted by Karie (site owner) on 03/02 at 04:22 AM