Happy Oscar Week, everybody!

Saw the last two Oscar nominated films today - "Michael Clayton" and "Atonement". I wasn't going to see the latter, but since my sibs had both seen all five Best Picture films, I wasn't going to be left out.

"Michael Clayton" is very good. I really did enjoy it, even though it really didn't break a whole lot of new ground - once again stomping down the "big corporation=bad" road that's been done quite a bit recently. That being said, it was still a heckuva good script - opening monologue especially. Clooney is all right, not sure he deserves a Best Actor nomination, but he does a nice job of standing still while everybody else acts circles around him. And they get extra points for putting David Zayas on camera - there's something seriously wrong with me when I'm thinking that Clooney's being out-sexy-ed by the guy who played Enrique Morales (just saying). Of course, Tilda Swinton left them all behind, but that's pretty much a "me" thing.

"Atonement" was much, much better than I expected. So much so that it somehow managed to leapfrog to number 3 on my rankings of the 5 films. McAvoy was not annoying which helped quite a bit. Some of the directorial choices were rather silly, but the film on the whole had some lovely things to say about the nature of storytelling.

So ranking the five Best Picture nominations-
1, There Will Be Blood
2. No Country for Old Men (which will probably win)
3. Atonement
4. Michael Clayton
5. Juno

Academy voting aside, I've seen at least 14 films from 2007 (in the theater) and my top five are:
1. Superbad
2. Eastern Promises
3. Sweeney Todd
4. There Will Be Blood
5. The Savages

There will be more predictions and awards related stuff as the week goes on.

Happy Oscar Week, everybody!

Saw the last two Oscar nominated films today - "Michael Clayton" and "Atonement". I wasn't going to see the latter, but since my sibs had both seen all five Best Picture films, I wasn't going to be left out.

"Michael Clayton" is very good. I really did enjoy it, even though it really didn't break a whole lot of new ground - once again stomping down the "big corporation=bad" road that's been done quite a bit recently. That being said, it was still a heckuva good script - opening monologue especially. Clooney is all right, not sure he deserves a Best Actor nomination, but he does a nice job of standing still while everybody else acts circles around him. And they get extra points for putting David Zayas on camera - there's something seriously wrong with me when I'm thinking that Clooney's being out-sexy-ed by the guy who played Enrique Morales (just saying). Of course, Tilda Swinton left them all behind, but that's pretty much a "me" thing.

"Atonement" was much, much better than I expected. So much so that it somehow managed to leapfrog to number 3 on my rankings of the 5 films. McAvoy was not annoying which helped quite a bit. Some of the directorial choices were rather silly, but the film on the whole had some lovely things to say about the nature of storytelling.

So ranking the five Best Picture nominations-
1, There Will Be Blood
2. No Country for Old Men (which will probably win)
3. Atonement
4. Michael Clayton
5. Juno

Academy voting aside, I've seen at least 14 films from 2007 (in the theater) and my top five are:
1. Superbad
2. Eastern Promises
3. Sweeney Todd
4. There Will Be Blood
5. The Savages

There will be more predictions and awards related stuff as the week goes on.