Cinema Autopsy on the 81st Academy Awards ceremony and winners

24 February 2009
Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire

Go straight to the list of Award winners

Who would have thought that getting a host who was not a comedian would make such a difference to the Academy Awards ceremony? Hugh Jackman on first glance may not have seemed like an obvious choice but when you realise that he comes from the old-school showman song and dance tradition, it makes perfect sense. Jackman’s funny, warm and self deprecating opening set the tone for a ceremony that was fun, light and mostly free of awkward moments.

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Posted by Thomas Caldwell

Cinema Autopsy’s predictions for the 81st Academy Awards

19 February 2009
Jamal (Dev Patel) and Prem Kumar (Anil Kapoor) from <em>Slumdog Millionaire</em>

Dev Patel as Jamal and Anil Kapoor as Prem Kumar from Slumdog Millionaire

As promised in my piece about the Academy Award nominees, here are my predictions for who I think will win the major awards and who I think should win the awards this Sunday night. If this year is like any other year then I will be way off the mark, but that’s not going to stop me from still having a go.

 

Best Motion Picture of the Year

The Reader and Milk are really the two most deserving films nominated but given the popularity of Slumdog Millionaire and it’s current winning streak at other awards then I think it is going to be the film that takes home the prize.

Predicted to win: Slumdog Millionaire
Should win: The Reader or Milk
Would annoy me if it won: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and frankly, despite initially liking it, the fuss over Slumdog Millionaire is starting to really turn me against it.
Also nominated: Frost/Nixon

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Posted by Thomas Caldwell

Cinema Autopsy on the 81st Academy Awards Nominees

29 January 2009
Kate Winslet as Hanna Schmitz in The Reader

Kate Winslet as Hanna Schmitz in The Reader

The nominees for the 81st Academy Awards have recently been released and like most critics and film buffs that I know I am far more interested and excited by the outcome than I like to admit. The Academy Awards are notoriously political, conservative and populist, and are rarely a barometer of good quality filmmaking. In just the past ten years two extremely average films (Shakespeare in Love and Crash) and four popular good-but-not-that-great films (Gladiator, A Beautiful Mind, Chicago and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King) have won the Best Motion Picture of the Year award. But then again, American Beauty very much deserved its win and I was also pleased when Million Dollar Baby won. The last two years have actually seen awards go to deserving recipients across the board and giving the top prize to The Departed and No Country for Old Men made me think that the standards have lifted at the Academy.

I’ll post another piece closer to the time with my notoriously inaccurate predictions about who will win and who I think should win, but for now I thought I’d share my thoughts about the actual nominations.

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Posted by Thomas Caldwell

Film review – The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)

26 December 2008

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is the story of a man who is born as an old man and ages in reverse to eventually die as a newborn baby. Although based on a 1922 short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, this 2008 film bears the stamp of its writer Eric Roth more than anybody else. Roth has penned several screenplays of varied quality throughout his career with Munich (Steven Spielberg), Ali and The Insider (both directed by Michael Mann) being amongst his better efforts. However it is the Academy Award winning Forrest Gump that bears the most similarities to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Both films involve a male protagonist whose unusual circumstances give him a unique view of the world and 20th century history. Both men encounter various unconventional mentors who guide them on their way through life and both men fall hopelessly in love with a woman who is almost always out of their reach.

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Posted by Thomas Caldwell