The other day I was watching The Birdcage, a movie that I have loved since seeing in at the theaters nearly 15 years ago. Based on the French film La Cage aux Folles (which is also quite entertaining), the American adaptation brought together the classic comedy duo of Nichols and May, with Mike Nichols directing, and Elaine May writing the screenplay. I am a big fan of Mike Nichols, as he has directed some of my favorite movies (The Graduate, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Working Girl- just for starters).

So it’s Oscar time again my friends. I accidentally scheduled myself for other plans on Oscar night, so I won’t be watching live. And not to be a jerk or snob about it, but I really don’t care. I do want to know who wins, but don’t put too much stock in them- politics prevails over quality too often, and the Oscars are no exception. They certainly get some awards right, but it is less about the art of film and more about the celebrity of Hollywood, but we all know that, right?

I’m going to present to you now who I would vote for if I was a member of the Academy. And I’ll tell you why. Refute me if you please…….

August: Osage County is a great theater-going experience, there’s just no other way to say it. It’s brutal, hilarious, deeply sad, smart, brash, nasty, and bold. Enough adjectives for you? I can come up with a million more and still not cover it. With three acts, two intermissions, and clocking in at three-and-a-half hours this is a tour-de-force of the stage, without a boring moment in it.

I have to be honest, if it hadn’t been nominated, it’s likely that I wouldn’t have seen The Blind Side, and it is more likely that I wouldn’t have picked it to write about here. And listen, I have nothing against pure Hollywood films; I love them as much as Indies, it’s just that this film didn’t look like my cup of tea. However, I love when I’m surprised by a movie I’m not interested in, some of my favorite movies have been ones that I didn’t care that much to ever see. And after the Academy awarded it with a prestigious nomination, I knew I had to see it. Listen, I’m human, I have opinions, but I promise dear reader that for you I would give it a shot and go in with as open a mind as possible.

This week I finally caught up with two of the Oscar nominated films that I missed out on during their initial theatrical runs- The Hurt Locker and District 9, two genre films that the Academy has bestowed their approval upon this year. In a new and somewhat strange nominating process, the Academy has chosen to nominate 10 films for best picture. Those ten films are Avatar, The Blind Side, District 9, An Education, The Hurt Locker, Inglourious Basterds, Precious, A Serious Man, Up, and Up in the Air.

While always being a respected actor, Jeff Bridges jumped into a whole new category with The Big Lebowski. He brought us “The Dude”, a character that has vaulted him into being one of the legends of pop culture and movie geekdom. Before that, he had a track record of great performance from the beginning of his career. His is just one of the many great performances in Peter Bogdanovich’s classic The Last Picture Show, giving Bridges his first Oscar nomination in his debut film performance. And that was just the beginning of his career. Later hits like The Fabulous Baker Boys and The Fisher King to name just a small few have become modern classics largely because of Bridge’s performances.

Tucked away in a tiny German village hide some very dark, nasty secrets.  It is just a year before World War I, and the country- the whole continent really- has yet to be ravaged by war.  This is certainly not to say that everyone in the village is happy, no not the case at all.  Most in the village seem to be walking around like something is about to explode, as in any minute war may break out.  And so it does.  But the war that breaks out is not one that breaks nations, it is one within their own village, perpetrated by unknown persons (or forces?) onto the innocent.

Shot in color and transferred to black and white, comes the latest film by Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke, the 2009 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner, The White Ribbon.

The film Nine is based on the Broadway musical of the same name that was based on a play of the same name that was based on a movie of a different name.  What? Something tells me that as each incarnation came to fruition it dropped a rung or twenty down the ladder of greatness.  Have you seen Fellini’s 8½ (the aforementioned movie of a different name)?  Well if you have, you’ve seen a cinematic masterpiece, one of the most heralded movies ever made.  Now I am also familiar with the Broadway musical Nine, and while I actually think it to be both a well-crafted musical with some excellent songs, it’s no 8½. Now I’ve never seen the play that was based on the movie and gave birth to the musical, but I can tell you the leap from 8½ to the film Nine is one that seems to have shed nearly every ounce of artistic integrity along the way.

Okay, so here’s something you really need to know right off the bat- I haven’t met a Pedro Almodóvar film that I haven’t liked, or really, loved.  Oh wait, Kika. That’s it, that’s the only one I didn’t like, it just didn’t work for me.  Otherwise, for me, the man just hits it one movie after the next.  Particularly over the past decade he’s turned in a string of excellent movies that have won multiple awards: in 1999 his All About My Mother won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, which was quickly followed by another Oscar for Best Screenplay for 2002’s Talk to Her.  He then offered up Bad Education (2004) and Volver (2006), featuring a great performance by his resident muse, Penelope Cruz.

One of my favorite films of 2007 is my DVD pick of the week, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, a beautiful film directed by the visual artist Julian Schnabel.   Based on the memoir of Jean-Dominique Bauby, the film is a masterful telling of a story from the point of view of a man trapped inside his own body.  After suffering a major stroke at the age of 43, Bauby, who was an editor at French Elle, woke from a coma to find himself paralyzed from head to toe and rendered completely speechless, in a condition known as Locked-In Syndrome.   The condition did not affect his mental capabilities and Bauby was aware of all around him.  He had lost all means of expressing himself, except for the ability to blink his left eyelid.