Alan Rapp

Okay, so the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences is about to give out their shiny awards this Sunday but there’s still a chance to get this right guys – just listen to me.  Please!!!  Yeah, maybe not, but here you guys go with my picks for Oscar night including mention of a few snubbed individuals and films that should be represented on Oscar night.

78th Academy Awards
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Well here goes…

Best Picture

Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Crash
Good Night, and Good Luck
Munich
Deserves a spot on the list – A History of Violence was the most haunting film of 2005 and as good if not better than every film on this list.  Personally I would add the noirish comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Frank Miller’s bloody Sin City to the list but these aren’t the type of films the Academy acknowledges.
Doesn’t belong – Brokeback Mountain and
Capote are both fine films but neither is in the same category as the other nominees.
Who should win – With Violence ignored it’s a two man race between Good Night and Munich with Clooney’s baby coming out on top.  Good Night, and Good Luck is a remarkable film filled with great performances and an important message; for me it is the best film of 2005.
Who will win – Despite late pushes for Crash and Capote I don’t see either derailing the Brokeback train.  Sadly I expect the most flawed film of the five nominees, Brokeback Mountain, to take home the Oscar.

Best Director

Ang Lee, Brokeback Mountain
Bennet Miller, Capote
Paul Haggis, Crash
George Clooney, Good Night, and Good Luck
Steven Spielberg, Munich
Deserves a spot on the list – Joe Wright, Pride & Prejudice.  A remarkably refreshing interpretation of Jane Austen’s novel that is beautiful to look and impossible to not enjoy.
Doesn’t belong – Bennet Miller, Capote.  Much like the man, Capote never finds a true heart or message and never engages the audience in the way the material should.
Who should win – George Clooney.  Clooney infects his film with the same effortlessness he shows in his own on-screen performances.  An important moment in is well captured in black and white and never becomes preachy or or dull.  Amazing work by a still very young director.
Who will win – Ang Lee.  Write it down.  The Director’s Guild winner will take home the Oscar in the one definite lock of the night.

 

Best Actor

Philip Seymour Hoffman, Capote
Terrance Howard, Hustle & Flow
Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain
Joaquin Phoenix, Walk the Line
David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck
Deserves a spot on the list – Mickey Rourke, Sin City and Viggo Mortensen, A History of Violence.  Two violent performances that are the heart of each film.  Mortensen has never been better and Rourke’s depth and range just blew me away.
Doesn’t belong – I’m okay with the list the Academy picked, though if I had to take one off it would be Phoenix’s portrayal as Johnny Cash not for fault in the performance itself but for the subject matter that never let us get close enough to the real man.
Who should win – Rourke, but as he’s not on the list I’ll go with my second choice David Strathairn for his portrayal of newsman Edward R. Murrow.  Much like Hoffman, Strathairn takes on the pressure of portraying a real life figure but where Hoffman shows us a one-sided manipulator Strathairn shows both Murrow’s angels and demons in a complete performance that’s just outstanding.
Who will win – Philip Seymour Hoffman.  Mark it down folks; he’s won at every award ceremony.  I don’t see any signs that this award show will be any different.

 

Best Actress

Judi Dench, Mrs. Henderson Presents
Felicity Huffman, Transamerica
Keira Knightly, Pride & Prejudice
Charlize Theron, North Country
Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line
Deserves a spot on the list – Joan Allen, The Upside of Anger.  How the single best female performance of the year by a well respected actress like Allen was completely ignored is inexcusable.
Doesn’t belong – I can’t argue with this list which is easily the most competitive this year.
Who should win – With Allen left off the list this is the hardest category for me as I think every performance is Oscar worthy.  Huffman and Witherspoon are the two favorites and both have picked up awards for their wonderful performances and Dench was perfect as Mrs. Henderson.  But on Oscar night I’m going to be pulling for dark horse Knightly who gave two of the best performances of the year (Pride and Domino).
Who will win – Reese Witherspoon pulls out the close win over Huffman.

 

Supporting Actor

George Clooney, Syriana
Matt Dillon, Crash
Paul Giamatti, Cinderella Man
Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain
William Hurt, A History of Violence
Deserves a spot on the list – Jesse L. Martin and Wilson Jermaine Heredia for RENT, Val Kilmer for Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Donald Sutherland for Pride & Prejudice, and Alexander Siddig for Syriana
Doesn’t belong – The entire list except for Gyllenhaal, and the possible exception of Hurt playing completely against type, give fine but not really noteworthy performances.
Who should win – Since Gyllenhall’s performance is best role from Brokeback Mountain, and since no one was nominated who I think deserves it, I guess I’ll take one of the gay cowboys here.
Who will win – Paul Giamatti will take home the gold in a classic Oscar moment of rewarding great acting a year late.

 

Supporting Actress

Amy Adams, Junebug
Catherine Keener, Capote
Frances McDormand, North Country
Rachel Weisz, The Constant Gardener
Michelle Williams, Brokeback Mountain
Deserves a spot on the list – Maria Bello for A History of Violence, Rosario Dawson for RENT, Jennifer Carpenter for The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and Shirley MacLaine for Rumor Has It...
Doesn’t belong – Frances McDormand is terrific but seriously this is a role she could have done in her sleep.
Who should win – Bello deserves the award with Dawson coming in a close second and MacLaie third but again the Academy didn’t recognize these tremendous performances.  Out of this list I’m inclined to vote for Catherine Keener who gives a much fuller performance than Hoffman’s celebrated one in Capote though I’d be fine with Weisz taking home the award for a very fine performance in an incredibly predictable so-so film.
Who will win – Rachel Weisz is the favorite and I don’t see Michelle Williams beating her out or enough voters to have seen Junebug to push Amy Adams over the top.

Early Review.  Fan Collective – Borg is a fan picked episode collection of the nasty half-man/half-machine collective intent on assimilating all species of life as part of their own.  The collection has some gems like the two-part “The Best of Both Worlds”  often voted the best STNG episode and the ethical delimma of “I, Borg.”  It’s also more than half filled with Voyager episodes and an Enterprise episode.  So how does the full collection measure up?  Well, depends on what you think of Voyager.  Frankly I think it’s a much weaker show than either STNG or my fav DS9 (not included in this collection) which is a problem for me as more than one half of the set is made up of Cap’n Janeway and her bland crew.  Still, for fans of the villains who haven’t picked up the season sets these shows are available on (and don’t have my distaste for the Voyager crew) it’s a cheap way to add them to your collection with this handsomely packaged set.  It will be availale on March 7.  Read on…

Star Trek Fan Collective – Borg
3 Stars

If there was ever a niche DVD set I guess this would be it.  The set collects the fans’ ten favorite Borg episodes.  All of these episodes are already available on the various season sets of the different Star Trek shows.  So this group is for those not willing to put down the cash for those expensive collections or who only like Borg episodes.  I could have used a little less Voyager though the episode introducing the character of Seven of Nine and the two-hour time travel series finale have some interesting moments.

The Borg are half-man/half-machine creatures that assimilate any useful technology and culture they come across and destroy anything they cannot control.  The collection collects the fans favorite Borg episodes including their first appearance in “Q Who?” to the rewriting history episode of Enterprise.  Some of the episodes are pretty good and some are Voyager episodes so they’re only so-so.  Yeah I’m not a fan of Captain Janeway and her wayward crew who couldn’t find their way out of the Delta quadrant with a map and a warp drive. 

Here’s a breakdown of the episodes found on the disc:

Enterprise
“Regeneration” – Takes place a hundred years after events in Star Trek: First Contact were excavators find the frozen remains of the Borg invasion force that tried to stop Zefram Cochrane’s warp flight.  An interesting riff on The Thing as scientist allow the Borg to come back to life only to need Captain Archer (Scott Bakula) and his group to show up to save the day.  End result does create some continuity problems as the Federation had never heard of the Borg a couple of hundred years later in…

Star Trek: The Next Generation
“Q Who” – Annoyed by Picard and his crew and wanting to teach them a lesson Q (John de Lancie) sends the Enterprise hundreds of light-years away into the path of the Borg, a cyborg organism with a hive consciousness.  Great new villains for the show who would return in…

“The Best of Both Worlds” – Two part episode marking the return of the Borg, the assimilation of Captain Jean Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), and the attack on Earth.  Often voted the favorite STNG episode; this two-parter is the gem of the collection.

“I, Borg” – Great ethical episode (a strength of STNG) involves the Enterprise saving a Borg, disconnecting him from the collective, teaching him about individuality, and the plan to use him as a carrier to plant a genocidal virus into the hive mind.  What is right?  What is wrong?  Is Hugh (Jonathan Del Arco) an individual or merely a weapon?

“Descent” – Two-part episode involving Lore (Brent Spiner) using the Borg for his own ends who have fractured due to the integration of individualism when Hugh rejoined them.  Spiner does a good job in double duty here as the show deals with the consequences of the crew’s decisions in “I, Borg.”

Star Trek: Voyager
“Scorpion” – Two-part episode involving the wayward Voyager entering Borg space on their way home and encountering a species that are even more deadly who are waging war with the Borg.  Species 8472 looks more at home on Babylon 5 and the show never really explains “fluidic space” very well but the second episode is noteworthy because it introduces series regular Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan).

“Drone” – Yet another transporter accident episode ends up creating a futuristic Borg (J. Paul Boehmer).  Not much of interest here and a rather bland rehash of events in DS9‘s “The Abandoned.”

“Dark Frontier” – Two-part episode looking at the hubris of the Voyager crew going toe-to-toe with the Borg and Seven of Nine’s return to the collective.  Interesting scenes between the Borg Queen (Susanna Thompson) and Seven, but they don’t really fit into how the Borg should act in such situations.

“Matrix Zero” – Dreadful two-part episode about a special place some Borgs go when they dream and live as individuals.  The complete lack of logic aside the episode is still laughingly bad.  Also of interest here the Borg Queen states she was assimilated into the hive when she was young.  So…did the Borg not have a Queen until then?  How did she become the Queen?  Does this even make sense?

“Endgame” – Final two-hour episode of Voyager as the crew battles the Borg and gets help and technology from a future Janeway (Kate Mulgrew).  Different view on temporal law and time travel than Roddenberry’s (I wonder what he would have thought of the episode) but the issues are dealt with and the battles with the Borg and discussions of returning home are done well.

Most likely if you like these episodes enough to buy them you’ve already plunked down the heavy cash for the season sets.  You don’t get any extras here that would make a must have to be added this to your collection.  For fans who enjoy the Borg that haven’t picked up the season sets it is a cheaper alternative but then again you’re getting stuck with an awful lot of Voyager episodes who wasted years of the show unable to come up with any good villains of their own they had to steal them from STNG.  I’m also not too fond of the Borg Queen (introduced in First Contact) who totally changes the Borg from a collective computer-like intelligence to a collection of mindless drones under a single leader and all the Voyager episodes put her in the forefront as a Q like villain instead of dealing with the Borg collective.

We’re here to let you know what’s out there for your entertainment dollar.  Every week a new batch of DVD’s gets shipped out and thrown onto the shelves.  This week we’ve got a film that made two of our Top 10 lists (yeah, I don’t know what’s wrong with Aaron either).  Also out today: the popular Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, some more TV collections, a fiftieth anniversary edition of Lady and the Tramp, and one of my worst films of 2005.  Take a peek inside for the full list.

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Here’s what is getting released today on DVD:

Film:

Pride & Prejudice – A reinterpretation of the Jane Austen novel starring Keira Knightly as Elizabeth Bennet a modern woman stuck in a world not yet ready for her.  Beautiful cinematography and great acting make this a gem of 2005.  Knightly earned an Academy Award nomination for her performance and the film earned a spot on both December’s top ten list (check it out) and mine (check it out).  The DVD includes commentary from director Joe Wright, behind the scenes featurettes, and a feature on author Jane Austen.  Read the original review.

Walk the Line – Joaquin Phoenix stars as Johnny Cash and Reese Witherspoon has piled up the awards for her performance as June Carter.  The film takes a look at Cash’s childhood, his love affair with June, and drug use but not much about his career in music.  Available in two different additions with commentary by writer/directer James Mangold, trailers, and deleted scenes.  The Collector’s Edition has an extra disc with movie videos and featurettes.  Read the original review.

The Ice Harvest – Ugh!  Horribly unfunny and unsuspenseful suspense/comedy starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton.  It was bad enough to make my worst films of 2005.  The DVD contains commentary from director Harold Ramis, some featurettes, outtakes with Thornton, and an alternate ending.  Read the original review.

Where the Truth Lies – That naughty film with Kevin Bacon that was banned from most mainstream theaters that tried and failed to challenge the NC-17 rating.  The film noir/mystery/drama includes nudity, sex, violence, drugs, and blackmail.  Released here as director Atom Egoyan’s original version shown at Cannes.

Yours, Mine & Ours – I don’t know if Dennis Quaid is a good actor that takes bad parts or a mediocre actor that occasionally backs into a great role, but based on this one you’d have to assume the later.  The remake of 1968 film stars Quaid and Russo.  Sadly they’re no Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball.  Many gross jokes very young children might enjoy.

Collections:

Controversial Classics, Vol. 2 – The Power of Media (All the President’s Men, Network, Dog Day Afternoon) – Great set including the new two disc collections of all three films.  Extras include commentary for each film and more extras then you can shake a stick at plus a nice collector’s sleeve for the DVDs. 

Family/Animated:

Lady and the Tramp (50th Anniversary Edition) – The classic Disney film gets a special 50th Anniversary DVD upgrade.  The love story between Lady (a sheltered cockel spaniel) and Tramp (a streetwise mutt) is one of the most beloved Disney love stories.  The film has been digitally restored with 5.1 sound and enhanced picture and includes never-before-seen footage, original storyboards, an all new music video, a trivia game for kids, a featurettes on the making of the film.

Beast Machines: Transformers – The Complete Series – Transformers computer generated spin-off centered around a group of Maximals trying to free Cybertron form the Veicons and Megatron.

TV:

Charmed – The Complete Fourth Season – The first season post-Shannen Doherty is chronicled including the two-hour introduction of Rose McGowan as Paige.  The set includes 21 episodes on six discs.

NewsRadio (The Complete Third Season) – The hijinks at WNYX continue with all 25 third season episodes including commentary from 10 episodes, featurettes, and a gag reel.

Bleak House – BBC mini-series adaption of Charles Dickens finds young orphans at the mercy of an unjust 19th Century legal system, murder and more.  The set includes all fifteen episodes on three discs.

Ellen – Season 3 – Third season of Ellen DeGeneres unfunny sitcom includes all 27 episodes and bloopers.  Joely Fisher and Jeremy Piven also star.

I was all set to wax nostalgic over Don Knotts who passed away last Friday at the age of 81.  Then December found this site which offers such a loving tribute to the man I just thought I’d share it with you.  I’ll just say thanks for protecting Mayberry, for the Apple Dumpling Gang, The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, and so much more.  Your unique humor and voice will be missed.  Just click on the pic and enjoy tons of Don Knotts goodness.

Don Knotts 1924-2006
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