February 14, 2009
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BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
The Nominees Are:
- The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
- Encounters at the End of the World
- The Garden
- Man on Wire
- Trouble the Water
Erin’s Pick: Encounters at the End of the World
My Mom’s Pick: Trouble the Water
The Winner Last Year Was: Taxi to the Dark Side
Well, the nominees are nowhere near as political as last year’s lot, but the plotlines sure are different from one another. The Betrayal is the story of a Laotian family who is forced to flee the country during the Vietnam War. Encounters at the End of the World is a nature documentary about Antarctica. The Garden is the story of a 14-acre community garden in South Central Los Angeles that is threatened by land developers. Man on Wire chronicles a daredevil’s (illegal) tightrope walk across the twin towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. Trouble the Water is the story of a couple who survived the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (apparently the film makes extensive use of footage from the couple’s video camera).
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
The Nominees Are:
- Changeling
- The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
- The Dark Knight
- The Reader
- Slumdog Millionaire
Erin’s Pick: Slumdog Millionaire
My Mom’s Pick: The Dark Knight
The Winner Last Year Was: There Will Be Blood
I haven’t seen any of these, so I chose the one that I am the most interested in seeing. My mom chose The Dark Knight because it’s the only one that she has seen. By the way, I read some entertainment columnist who was mad that The Dark Knight, for the most part, was only nominated for “tech” awards (and Heath Ledger). His argument was that it was the most successful movie of 2008 and apparently #2 on the all-time box office list. Dude, in case you hadn’t noticed, the top movie at the box office in any given year usually does not get a lot of Oscar recognition. This page has a list of the top movie of every year since 1915. Most of them did not win or were even nominated for the “big” awards. In the past twenty years, only Forrest Gump, Titanic, and LOTR: The Return of the King were both box-office champs and Best Picture winners. As for his other argument, actually, Wikipedia has The Dark Knight ranked at #4 on the all-time list, not #2. Return of the King and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest are both between The Dark Knight and Titanic (and of the top 10, ONLY Titanic and ROTK have won Best Picture, and The Two Towers is the only other one to have been nominated). But I digress.
