Oscar Look Back - 2008

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting lookbacks at the Oscar years for 2008, 1998, 1988, 1978, 1968, 1958, 1948 and 1938. I haven’t seen everything nominated those years, but rank the ones I have for Picture, Director and all four Acting Categories. We’ll start with 2008.

2008 Oscars Nominations

Picture

1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2. Milk
3. Slumdog Millionaire - WINNER
4. The Reader
5. Frost/Nixon

Why This Ranking: This was the year that broke the Oscars – when they decided to expand the Best Picture Lineup specifically in response to this lineup. It’s not a particularly strong one, even if I like all of the films Frost/Nixon is the weakest link, but it’s still a conventionally satisfying, old school biopic. I quite like The Reader – while still realizing it has its share of flaws, although Kate Winslet’s great performance helps a lot of them. The hugely entertaining Slumdog Millionaire has had its detractors over the years, but if you completely hate it, you don’t have a heart – so while it isn’t my choice, it’s a fine winner. I do prefer the films of Gus Van Sant’s he made right before Milk (Gerry, Elephant, Last Days, Paranoid Park) – but Milk – is kind of the mainstream version of those films, and a conventional biopic, that it is also hugely rewarding. Finally, yes, I’m the one who still defends the wonderful The Curious Case of Benjamin Button  - David Fincher’s slow, three hour meditation on death, for which my appreciation of has only grown in the past decade. It should have won.

What Was Overlooked: One of my absolute favorite films of the decade was Synecdoche, New York which was always going to be too weird, but I would still love if it got in. They also really should have nominated Wall-E and The Dark Knight – which were huge critical and commercial hits.

 

Director

1. David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
2. Gus Van Sant, Milk
3. Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire - WINNER
4. Stephen Daldry, The Reader
5. Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon

Why This Ranking: This is one of those boring year when Picture/Director matched complexly, so yawn, I don’t have much to say on this – as it’s exactly the same. I will say the one thing I hate about the expanded best picture lineup is that we no longer have the Lone Director nominees anymore.

Who Was Overlooked: I really wish they would have nominated Christopher Nolan for The Dark Knight for two reasons – one, he really did deserve it, and the second so his fanboys would shut the hell up about it.

 

Actor

1. Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler
2. Sean Penn, Milk - WINNER
3. Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
4. Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
5. Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon

Why This Ranking: I really do like Frank Langella in Frost/Nixon – but there have been a lot of great Nixons in movie history, and Langella isn’t in the top spot (or even top 3 -Anthony Hopkins, Philip Baker Hall, Dan Hedaya would get my votes, but hey he’s better than John Cusack) – so perhaps a nomination was a bit much. I love Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – but the point of the performance is that he blends in, so it’s not exactly a performance of great range. Richard Jenkins in The Visitor is terrific – and it’s great to see a performance in a small movie like this just soldier through and pick up a nomination. Winner Sean Penn in Milk really is one of his best performances – and one of the only ones where he completely disappears into the role, so it’s a good winner to be sure. But Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler completely wrecked me – and is one of the great performances of the decade. I thought it was the start of a great comeback for Rourke – it wasn’t – but even as a one off, it’s great.

Who Was Overlooked: I liked Josh Brolin in W. more than most did in 2008, and that’s still true a decade later – but it really is the definitive George W. Bush for me (WAY better than Sam Rockwell’s in Vice) and would have loved to see him get in. I really loved Leonardo DiCaprio in Revolutionary Road – and the film itself – and I’ll never understand why it didn’t connect with audiences or critics more than it did.

 

Actress

1. Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
2. Meryl Streep, Doubt
3. Kate Winslet, The Reader – WINNER
4. Melissa Leo, Frozen River
5. Angelina Jolie, Changeling

Why This Ranking: I do kind of think that Clint Eastwood’s Changeling is underrated – but I still think Angelina Jolie isn’t the element that needed to be singled out. Melissa Leo was great in Frozen River – and I have no problem with this nomination, but it’s the kind of quiet indie that has mainly been forgotten in the last decade. Had Kate Winslet been nominated for Revolutionary Road, she would have been my easy choice for the win – but her work in The Reader is excellent, and it was time she won, so okay. Meryl Streep’s work in Doubt is my favorite performance of her this century, and is truly brilliant. And yet, Anne Hathaway in Rachel Getting Married delivered her best work ever, and I love the fact that this strange film got in here – if only she had won.

Who Was Overlooked: The best work of the year was Kate Winslet in Revolutionary Road – so I would have swapped her in for her work in The Reader. I think Michelle Williams is brilliant in Wendy & Lucy – and would have been a great choice for the Indie spot. I also would have loved to see a foreign legend in Catherine Denueve get nominated for her great work in A Christmas Tale.

 

Supporting Actor

1. Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight - WINNER
2. Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
3. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
4. Josh Brolin, Milk
5. Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

Why This Ranking: I love Michael Shannon – it’s ridiculous he only has two nominations to this point in his career – and his small performance in Revolutionary Road is very good, but it’s a very old fashioned type of role (the guy people think is crazy is really the truth teller). Josh Brolin in Milk got the nomination over some of his co-stars in part because he really is quite good as the man who kills the hero, and also because they’re more comfortable with that type of role than some of the others. It’s always tough to take a hugely acclaimed play and transform it to screen – and I think Philip Seymour Hoffman in Doubt – does a brilliant job playing the priest that no one can quite pin down. It was an inspired nomination for Robert Downey Jr. to get in for Tropic Thunder – as the white method acting who turns himself black for a role, and a reminder that he used to be one of the most risk taking actors in the world, before all he played was Tony Stark. But the winner was the right choice – Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight is the ultimate comic book villain, and the definitive interpretation of The Joker. All comic book villains before and since pale in comparison.

Who Was Overlooked: There was an even more inspired comic performance than Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder – of course I mean Brad Pitt in Burn After Reading who is absolutely hilarious in the Coen classic – which I loved more than most in 2008 – and people have started to come around to my point of view considering who is now the President. I thought at the time that Burn After Reading would age poorly – being it a product of its time and place, but it’s even more relevant now than ever.

 

Supporting Actress

1. Viola Davis, Doubt
2. Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler
3. Amy Adams, Doubt
4. Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona - WINNER
5. Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Why This Ranking: I love Taraji P. Henson and she’s good in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button – but it’s hard to get past the idea that it’s another role for a black actor that is there to simple serve the white protagonist. Penelope Cruz in Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a true firecracker in Woody Allen’s film (the second last of 7 winning performance directed by Allen) – but I prefer other performances, perhaps even in the same movie (Rebecca Hall). Amy Adams in Doubt kind of flew under the radar a little bit – because her performance is quieter than anyone else’s in the film – but it is every bit as deserving. Marisa Tomei in The Wrestler really takes what could be a nothing role – the love interest of the protagonist – and turns it into a truly remarkable performance, and was part of a run of great work she was doing at that time (In the Bedroom, Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead). But I think the correct winner would have been Viola Davis in Doubt who has one scene, but completely owns it – not only keeping up with Meryl Streep but burying her.

Who Was Overlooked: There was a time when Samantha Morton was an Oscar favorite – and I wish that had extended to Synecdoche, New York – which was the best of a lot of great supporting performances in that movie. And I do think that Kate Winslet in The Reader actually belonged in this category – the film is called The Reader after all, not The Read To.