Catching up with Oscar Nominees

The Super Bowl is history and it’s now time to start planning that all-night Oscar-watching party for Sunday, February 24th. Although there are rumors of an impending settlement in the writers’ strike, we can only hope that the Motion Picture Academy decides to go with “plan B,” and devote the between-awards activities of the show to more film clips and awards history instead of their traditional insipid stage production numbers and lame jokes (Jon Stewart is no Billy Crystal). This will be, after all, the 80th annual awards ceremony.

Even if the Academy usually gives its history short shrift, at least Turner Classic Movies is again devoting 31 days to running nothing but Academy Award winners and nominees from the very first year of the Oscars through the present. In fact, this past Monday night was TCM’s first ever broadcast of the first Best Picture winner, the World War I epic “Wings,” followed by “Sunrise,” the only film to win for Best Artistic Quality of Production, and “Broadway Melody,” the first talking film to win Best Picture.

This year, unlike some in the recent past, it has been easier to see a large percentage of the nominees. The Academy Awards are only a couple of weeks away and some of the films that never made it into wide release are gradually showing up now that they have Oscar nominations. Of course several, especially some of the minor nominees, are already on DVD. These include “Ratatouille” (with five nominations including Best Original Screenplay and Best Animated Feature), “La Vie en Rose” (Best Actress, Costumes and Makeup nominations), “The Bourne Ultimatum” (Best Film Editing, Sound Editing, and Sound Mixing nominations), “The Transformers” (Best Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, and Visual Effects nominations), “3:10 to Yuma” (Best Music Score and Sound Mixing nominations), “Pirates of the Caribbean : At World’s End” (Best Makeup and Visual Effects nominations), and “Norbit” (Best Makeup nomination).

This month several current major nominees (many of which never played here theatrically) come out on DVD. Just this week were “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” (Best Supporting Actor and Cinematography nominations), “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” (Best Actress and Costumes nominations) and “Across the Universe” (Costumes nomination). Then “Gone Baby Gone” (Best Actress nomination) and “Into the Wild” (Best Supporting Actor and Film Editing nominations) will be coming out Februrary 12th while “American Gangster” (Best Supporting Actor and Art Direction nominations) and “In the Valley of Elah” (Best Actor nomination) come out February 19th.

“Juno,” with four major nominations (Best Picture, Director, Screenplay, and Actress), is currently playing. This year’s two most-nominated films (eight apiece) are “No Country for Old Men” and “There Will Be Blood.” “No Country for Old Men” played previously, but was just brought back to Grand Forks last week. “There Will Be Blood” just opened in Fargo when its limited release was expanded, but it still hasn’t played in Grand Forks (though it may be opening this week or next).

Major nominee “Michael Clayton” did make it to Grand Forks briefly, but was brought back again for a week after its seven nominations were announced. “Sweeney Todd” (Best Actor, Art Direction, and Costumes) has come and gone. “The Kite Runner” (Music Score) recently showed up for a couple of weeks, and “Atonement” (with seven nominations including Best Picture, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, and Cinematography) is still running.

As usual, the nominees for shorts, Foreign Language Film, and Documentary Feature did not play locally. The only other major multiple-nominees still in theatrical release but not yet screened locally are “The Savages” (Best Actress and Original Screenplay nominations), “Away from Her” (Best Actress and Adapted Screenplay nominations), and “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” (Best Director, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, and Film Editing nominations).

“Into the Wild” opened nationally in September and played in Fargo back in October when it was still on fewer than 200 screens. It never did get a wider release than 660 screens, and it finally got to Grand Forks in its 20th week of release now that it has two nominations and comes out on DVD next week. Based on a true story, it is well-worth seeing, seeing again, or catching up with shortly on DVD (Greg Carlson did a perceptive HPR review back in October).

Sean Penn wrote, produced, and directed (but did not act in) “Into the Wild.” It looks at first like it’s going to be just another wilderness survival movie, and quickly turns into a typical late 1960s-early 1970s “significant” social statement picture about modern materialism and hippie/backpacker living by nature and the sweat of honest labor (even using the oh-so-60s split-screen editing technique from time to time). However, by the last half to third of its two hour and twenty minute running time it settles into an engrossing, sometimes moving, and sometimes quite profound philosophical exercise exploring the meaning of happiness and the ramifications of personal choices.