Awards this year's flicks ought to be receiving
Read it here first: '07's movie honors.
By COLIN COVERT
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
No matter how thin or rich the pickings this year, come Jan. 23, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences must trot out five Best Picture candidates, a tradition that is mathematically precise, clear-cut and completely phony. How can they balance style and substance, intelligence and entertainment?
Rather than declare the films that meant the most to me this year as the best on some universal, abstract scale, I think it's more honest to give them individualized honors.
The Movie That Best Defined This Decade: "United 93"
"United 93," director Paul Greengrass' painstaking reconstruction of the events surrounding the crash of the only hijacked plane that missed its target on Sept. 11, 2001, is a landmark in docudrama filmmaking. The film doesn't provide tidy answers or emotional catharsis, but it is a courageous exploration of painful issues.
The Film That Made Me Laugh Loudest: "Borat"
Sacha Baron Cohen's boom'erang attack on moralists, racists and Pamela Anderson was the riskiest sort of comic performance. The film is unforgettable for a dozen sequences, but for the sheer audacity of the endless nude wrestling scene alone it deserves hall of fame status.
Best Return to Form: "The Departed"
After a flirtation with history, biography and documentary, Martin Scorsese came back where he belongs with this gritty, profane, hilarious, fiercely intelligent police thriller. Down to the last cheeky shot of a rat scuttling past a luxury apartment, Scorsese offered a postgraduate course on how kick-ass crime thrillers are made.
Best Adaptation of an Unfilmable Book: "Tristram Shandy"
Michael Winterbottom's metafictional film-within-a-film-within-a-book-within-a-book is 1) a fine homage to a much-loved and notoriously uncinematic shaggy dog tale; 2) a withering satire of the film world's egotism and toadying; and 3) a splendid star vehicle for English comedian Steve Coogan, here playing an insufferable twit comedian named Steve Coogan. Honorable Mention: "Fast Food Nation"
Best Film of the Female Persuasion: "The Devil Wears Prada"
Too bad they don't give Oscars for comedy performances, because Meryl Streep's fascist fashionista would be a shoo-in. As the abusive editor of a New York fashion magazine, she could give you a chemical peel with a sidelong glance. Yet she clearly had such a smashing time in the role that you can't help enjoying yourself whenever she's onscreen.
Film With the Best Performance by an Actor Who Hadn't Impressed Me All That Much Before: "Half Nelson"
Ryan Gosling's work as a schoolteacher who soothes his disillusionment with crack breaks in the girl's lavatory told me more about the addictive personality than a dozen textbooks. And he was a sensitive and accommodating acting partner for young Shareeka Epps, a brilliant first-time actress who got to play the mentor/savior role that usually goes to the white guy.
Scariest Monster Movie: "The Descent"
It put six women into a cave several miles underground, loosed a coven of flesh-eating monsters on them, turned the cavers against each other and played every emotional key of fright and despair with the skill of a concertmaster at a cathedral organ.
Scariest Comedy: "Thank You For Smoking"
Aaron Eckhart's bravura performance as a fast-talking tobacco lobbyist turned a reprehensible snake into a magnetic hero. To watch the film is to feel the delicious discomfort of being seduced by a devilish charmer.
Most Thought-Provoking Action Extravaganza: "V for Vendetta"
The Wachowskis (creators of the Matrix trilogy) updated Alan Moore's Thatcher-era graphic novel to pound every hot-button political issue of the post 9/11 era, from Abu Ghraib to London Underground bombings to weapons of mass destruction. Action blockbusters usually value artful explosions more than incendiary ideas. "V" piled on the thrills but refused to be trivial.
Best Swan Song: "A Prairie Home Companion"
The late Robert Altman brought Garrison Keillor's show to the screen in all its homespun glory and added his own tart, pessimistic humor. The result was an unalloyed delight, a collaboration between two uniquely American artists that brought out the best in both. The film featured a lyrical turn by Virginia Madsen as a lovely Angel of Death. What a way to go.