Award Season

Several outstanding movies, the approaching Golden Globes and Oscars and memories of my father's journal and his regular commentary on movies has inspired me to nominate my own movies and individuals for the 2008 movie season. I am not ready to do so yet as there are films to be seen and reviewing to be done, but I want to start it off with my 2007 awards. Actually, I am just going to honor one film in particular as it was the one that stood out to me, and to this day I am extremely disappointed in the Academy and the with the Globes for not at least giving more recognition to the movie through nominations. It's a "love-it or hate-it" type film, though I don't think people on the negative end of the spectrum actually hated it. I think they felt it was much too long and plodding and hence lost interest fast. That said, here are the nominations and awards I would have bestowed upon my favorite movie of the year: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

The Award For:

Best Score

Best Cinematography

Best Ensemble Cast

Best Director: Andrew Dominik

Best Actor: Brad Pitt

Best Film

And the Nominee:

Best Supporting Actor: Casey Affleck

Alas, the Globes and the the Oscars did acknowledge Affleck, though he did not win, and the Academy nominated the film for Cinematography...

2007 was indeed an exceptional year for movies. I'm not sure that 2008 compares, but I already have targeted Slumdog Millionaire as my film of the year. We saw Benjamin Button last night, and it was an extremely good movie, but Slumdog is still running ahead in my book (Doubt, Revolution Road, The Reader and perhaps a few more are still outstanding). I think it should do better than Jesse did, but I fear it also will be overlooked by other more "mainstream" films such as Button.

Stay tuned for Nominations and Awards from the Armchair, 2nd Floor. Have your popcorn and Netflix order forms ready...