• Pete Hammond can’t let go of this notion that “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” is a Best Picture contender. A bunch of number 10 slots aren’t going to cut it, Pete. [Notes on a Season]
• Adam B. Vary notes the curious absence of Gene Hackman from the silver screen since the 2004 bomb “Welcome to Mooseport.” [Pop Watch]
• Criminally underrated composer Clint Mansell spills a little on his plans for Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan.” [Little White Lies]
The year of the woman. The year of animation. The year of science-fiction. Depending on who you read (and believe), the final year of the decade has been an awful lot of things.
If you’re with Kris, it’s also the best cinematic year of the last ten. If you’re with an awful lot of others, it’s quite the opposite. I’ll stop short of rewriting the first page of “A Tale of Two Cities,” but suffice to say it’s been different things to different people.
What kind of year has it been for me? I think I’ll need another year to figure that out in detail. But as I compiled the list you’re about to read, I happily concluded that it’s been, at the very least, a good one: the 25 titles gathered here were jotted down with minimal brain-racking, with still more fighting from the sidelines.
None of them are grudging inclusions, either: I sincerely liked most of these titles too much to allow room for popular or critical phenomena that are worthy of respect, but nonetheless didn’t connect with me personally. There was a sufficient range of quality work in 2009 (following a lean 2008) that any film lover could afford to construct his own playlist of future treasures without resorting to consensus.
Before we begin, a note on the construction of the list. In addition to my Top 10, there are 15 honorable mentions here, five of them singled out for extra consideration. Some of you will quibble that I opt to include international or festival releases that have yet to surface in the U.S.
Every year I like to keep track of personal favorites throughout the Academy’s designated categories (plus one of my own addition, Best Ensemble). At the end of the year, my “if I had a ballot” post is the result.
Of course, for the most part, I follow Academy designations here. If something is ruled ineligible, I play along. It’s not that often that something like that is egregious anyway, though the music branch consistently tests my resolve on the matter. In years past I’ve tried to make it an AMPAS/critics’ awards hybrid kind of thing, but this makes it easier.
I know, I know. “Why don’t you just list what you think should be nominated, the rules be damned?” Because then I couldn’t call it “If I had a ballot?” But I guess I’m contradicting myself by adding a category. I don’t know. I’m just trying not to be too lamely definitive or authoritative with something like this, I suppose.
Anyway, I’m also abstaining from offering up a list of foreign language nods. Firstly, I feel it’s been a rather weak year in general there, but I also haven’t made my way fully through the list of submissions either. So I’ll address that another time. The same goes with he doc features, as I’d rather push through more of the eligible titles first.
This year the top 10 is the Best Picture field, obviously, and from there, I toss my two cents into a variety of discussions. Here’s what I came up with…
Jeez, give us some breathing room. Anyway, the American Film Institute has revealed their annual selection of the year’s best U.S. titles, and as usual, it’s a pleasingly diverse, idiosyncratic list.
My heart sings to see Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck’s marvelous “Sugar” make the cut, at the expense of heavily-hyped titles like “Invictus” and even “Avatar” — Anne Thompson reports the latter got a special citation for technical achievement, though it’s not in the press release.
From an awards-watcher’s perspective, however, the most interesting inclusion here might be “The Messenger,” whose higher-than-expected precursor profile suggests some may be underestimating its Oscar potential.
Those looking for correlation with the Academy’s eventual Top 10 should bear in mind that a foreign title like “An Education” isn’t eligible for inclusion here. Even so, I’d say there are plenty of American titles not included here that are more likely to land Best Picture nods than, say, “The Hangover.”
But that’s the beauty of the list — it’s always a joy to see a set of year-end honors with more on its mind than mere Oscar prognostication. Check out the full Top 10 after the cut.
As the year winds down, and critics and entertainment journalists search for neat blanket tags with which to label the year that was, “the year of animation” is a phrase that is getting increasingly bandied about – some going so far as to declare 2009 the greatest year of all time for animated product. (Certainly, TIME magazine has fed that narrative, by naming a trio of ‘toons the year’s three greatest films.)
It’s up for debate whether such talk is a result of extraordinary across-the-board quality, or sheer numbers. Make no mistake, this year has turned up more visible animated titles, in a broader range of artistic formats, than any in recent memory.
Confirmation of this deluge comes in the Academy’s official listing of 20 titles in the hunt for the Best Animated Feature Oscar – the largest number since the category’s inception in 2001, and one that ensures the first five-strong slate of nominees since 2002.
Of course, 2002, despite the higher-than-usual proportion of contenders, was hardly a banner year for the medium: “Spirited Away” may have taken a well-deserved Oscar, but the amount of filler it had to beat in the process – including such already forgotten snoozes as “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron” and “Treasure Planet” – was proof positive that quantity doesn’t equal quality in this particular race.
• The National Board of Review offered the season’s first major precursors, with “Up in the Air” sitting pretty.
• The Independent Spirit Award nominations were topped by “Precious” and, more surprisingly, “The Last Station.”
• Indie award rivals the Gotham Awards, meanwhile, crowned “The Hurt Locker” as the year’s best.
• Fresh off his Spirit nomination, we served up an extended interview with the great Jeff Bridges.
“Coraline” and “Up” both received nominations in eight categories. “The Princess and the Frog” showed up in five while “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” showed up in four.
“Fantastic Mr. Fox” (3), “Monsters vs. Aliens” (3), “9” (2), “Astro Boy” (2) and “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” (2) brought up the rear with mentions in three and two categories respectively. “Ponyo” also only landed two nods, for music and direction, so that’s probably worth noting.
I’m listing per category, by the way, because it’s weird to me to have two separate “nominations” in fields like character design and production design, one per person. Why not just one for the film with the artists listed as nominees? It makes sense for vocal performance nods, but not really otherwise. Anyway, to be fair, I guess “Coraline” leads the whole field with 10 total nominations, while “Up” has nine. “The Princess and the Frog” has eight, with that in mind.
Anyway, check out the full list of feature nominees after the jump (and the full list of all nominees at the Annie website).