I want to talk just a minute about the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, now that I've seen
Little Miss Sunshine.
I'm very glad for Alan Arkin, and his was certainly a deserving performance. My personal favorite in that race was Peter O'Toole, though I haven't seen his or any of the other nominees' performances either.
Still, I have to say that I think Steve Carrell was robbed for not even being nominated. Out of an entire cast of standout performances, his stood out for me.
I agree Steve Carrell's performance was the most nuanced. The son was great as well. A lot of times the studio pushes a certain actor for a certain award. I'm not sure if that was the case this time.
When I first saw Little Miss Sunshine, I left the theatre thinking that everyone in the film should be nominated. It was a great cast, and I am happy Arkin won.
I don't understand why Abigail Breslin was nominated for Best Supporting. Wasn't she the star?
Not necessarily. Her character was arguably the main character out of the ensemble, and was far and away the emotional center of the story, but I think the adults all had more lines and screen time which is the probably the most consistent determiner of the occult and murky divider the Academy uses to determine who is and Actor and who is merely a Supporting Actor.
My personal favorite in that race was Peter O'Toole
Wasn't he up for Best Actor, not Best Supporting?
As much as I would have liked for him to win (just on principle because Peter O'Toole is awesome), the expression on his face when he didn't was very much "Oh thank goodness I don't have to stand up," so I don't feel he was robbed.
What do you think is Almodovar's best work?
While I wasn't asked (sob!), my vote would be for
All About My Mother.
I'd say
Bad Education
second. I didn't care for
Talk To Her.
Labyrinth won everything else it was up for, and Lives is an amazing, brilliant movie.
Labyrinth didn't win Best Original Screenplay.
I'm ashamed to say I haven't actually seen "Das Leben der Anderen" yet (bad German resident!), but it's out on DVD here so that's easily rectified. Everyone here is very happy that it won.
The second that Coppola, Lucas and Spielberg walked on to the stage I knew that Marty had won. The financial and cultural cachet on the stage there at one time... wow. Marty was adorable, as was Thelma. What with Anne V. Coates winning the BAFTA Fellowship it's been a great year for amazing female editors.
[Edited because I meant Screenplay and wrote Score.]
Saw
Ghost Rider.
It was quite awful, but muchly in ways I like. The visual effects were really well designed (many cool points) and pretty well executed.
Eva Mendes was even worse than Nic Cage, which is saying something, because he stunk up the joint by overshooting past campy.
The other guys (Fonda, Bentley, Elliott) were appropriately over the top.
Unrelatedly, except for it being about a movie I may be dragged to in revenge for GR:
Playing a chained-up, half-naked nymphomaniac in her new movie Black Snake Moan helped Christina Ricci overcome her prudish nature, because now she parades around in her underwear all the time. The former child star had to face her fears of baring almost all for the film and decided the best way to get comfortable with revealing scenes was to wear nothing but lingerie at all times - even after cameras stopped rolling. She admits the ruse worked and made cast and crew think nothing of her revealing scenes when director Craig Brewer came to shoot them. And her new naked ambition lasted long after the movie wrapped. Ricci says, "I'm a prude and I do not like walking around naked and I was in my bathroom about two months after the movie finished and I was brushing my teeth and I was in my underwear and I looked down and was like, 'Oh, God, put something on.' Then I just stopped and thought, 'Oh my god, I was half naked for two months and my a*s was on camera.' I called my sister and I was like, 'Is it OK to wear nothing around the house? I'm freaking out.'"
Cute!