Kris Tapley hinting at Flags:.

Babel
The Departed
Flags of Our Fathers
Little Children
Babel

If you ask me, that's a very believable top 5. I could see Dreamgirls gettin there instead of either Babel/Little Children but really, 5 October films would be sweeeet!

Babel can't be THAT good and get two noms!

Sasha Stone likes FOOF very much as well.

“The Queen” and “Flags” both have the power to change our point of view. In the adept hands of Helen Mirren, who won’t come away from “The Queen” with greater understanding, sympathy and compassion for Queen Elizabeth? Where we regarded her as an ice queen – unloving towards her son and jealous of Diana, she has re-emerged as a woman sworn to a lifetime’s duty; a woman who is more comfortable with a gaggle of dogs roaming the countryside, completely alone than she would be courting the world’s attention like Diana did. Many of us had no clue as to what might have been really going on in her heart and mind; we assumed. And perhaps we assumed wrongly. Mirren will very likely win the Oscar. It’s hard to imagine any performance better than this one.

And that brings us to “United 93” and why it’s such a great film. Where there was the opportunity to make mythic creatures out of those passengers who joined forces to stand up to the hijackers – they were people, like you and me. Frail men and women who mustered up the fight in themselves to do the right thing. What is so interesting about Greengrass’ approach is that he refuses to idolize any of them, not even the guy who famously said “Let’s roll.” Wouldn’t it have been so much easier to do that? A shortcut to an emotional release? As it was, we are left again with reality.

Top to bottom, all three films are unsentimental portraits of real people and real events. And somehow, they end up being tremendously moving. But more than that, they teach us valuable lessons about our lives, the choices we make, the leaders we elect. The leaders we don’t elect but serve us anyway. If this year’s Oscars takes us down this road, it will be a road less traveled where Hollywood films are concerned; but it is a necessary, unforgettable one.

Damn. It's going to suck seeing Winslet be nominated and lose once again.

This woman deserves more!

PEACE, Mike.

Babel received it's second negative review. I believe it was from Slant.

Don't Let Early Word Impact Your own Predictions

A girl learns a lot after watching Oscar for these eight years. Oscarwatch has been here longer than most, longer than Movie City News, The Envelope, Carpetbagger, USA Today, etc. Back in the day, Oscarwatching was not taken about as seriously as the Hollywood Stock Exchange; it was just a game. But it changed once the mainstream media got involved. Now, it seems to be taken much more as fact and weird shit keeps happening. There is a huge disconnect between what is going on here on the web and what is happening with the Academy. It isn't unlike the difference between how Queen Elizabeth viewed Diana's death and the way the media and the public covered the aftermath. Okay, so it's not THAT big, but there are similarities.

Last year, we ALL had egg on our face regarding Munich. Though Spielberg's good name, a forceful publicity campaign got it nominated in the end, anyone who saw it could have told you, it ain't an Oscar best pic winner. But did that stop all of us from predicting it prematurely? And have we learned our lesson? In a way, yes. Now there is a reaction in the opposite direction. Everyone was so sure Flags of Our Fathers would be the Munich of this year (or, as the whisper campaign is already generating, the Jarhead of this year) that much was spewed prematurely regarding the film's failure.

It's ALL TOO EARLY TO MAKE THE CALL. Anne Thompson talks about this on Risky Business and she has a point: she says, why not judge the film on its merits rather than our expectations of it? What Eastwood is trying to say/do with this film is so much bigger than an awards show. It remains, so far, the only pic in the race that is about something "important."

The film hasn't even opened yet and it has already gone up, then down, and now is coming back up again, thanks to the Trades.

Premature killing of a picture before it even hits theaters is, in my humble opinion, as wrong as anything. What does it do but serve egos? How else can it be explained except that it shows others that you were right or wrong. And so? What does that do ultimately?

Lucky me I get to write whatever the hell I want because god knows the mainstream media covering the Oscars ignores this site (except that they all read it - they just pretend they don't). I am not worried about whether or not people think I'm wrong or right. What I do care about, though, is that a project like Flags of Our Fathers deserves better coverage than nasty attacks before they have a chance to be seen by the general public. What I don't get is why the studios allow people to see their films early? Is it because they're afraid if we don't see them early we won't cover them?

This week, Flags' reviews will start trickling in. And then, and only then, ought the movie be examined as to its Oscar potential. Back in the day, no one dared kill a film before its opening. The times, they have a-changed.