Grab Your Torch and Pitchforks

Photo Courtesy of Elizabeth "Biz" Edgar 2009

Last night was the Oscar Nominations. I have watched the Oscars like the film nerd that I am just about every year I've been old enough to know what they were. I have heard their bellyaching over the last several years that viewership is down and that no one really cares about the show that now goes way past midnight on a "school night". Well with this year's nominations I've no doubt why no one cares.

Best Picture

• The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
• Frost/Nixon
• Milk
• The Reader
• Slumdog Millionaire

Of those five films I have not seen any, and I only have the slightest inkling to see one of them, Frost/Nixon because I hate Nixon so much but find his evil life so interesting. Before the golden globes I had never heard of the almost-straight-to-video Slumdog Millionaire -- and to be honest with you I have never heard of The Reader. It seems to me that maybe The Dark Knight should have been nominated for best picture. Even if it didn't win I'm sure a film that nearly everyone in North America saw twice would have increased viewership ten fold. The film was an outstanding achievement. One of the largest scale and coolest crime dramas ever and oh yeah, it has it's roots in detective comics.

The character of batman has always had a relationship with cinema. From the serials that played at the beginning of motion pictures in the 40s, to the crowning achievements of The Dark Knight Batman deserves to be nominated. Some will immediately say that "oh well, just 'cause Heath Ledger died you idiots think that it should be nominated for everything" Not true! I thought that everyone's performance was great. I liked Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent/Two Face just as much, if not more than Ledger's Performance and I think that my favourite character in all Batman comics, Commissioner Jim Gordon was played brilliantly by Gary Oldman.

Obviously from a messy bedroom in Northern Ontario they aren't going to listen to me but believe me. In many of the past years I had seen all movies nominated in all main categories. Come February 22nd, Of all the categories of importance I have no feeling one way or the other how any of them turn out. I guess I just must not be as much of a film snob as I used to be.

One category... Visual Effects must go to Iron Man. The 3 iron man suits and the Ironmonger suit are among Stan Winston's greatest achievements and a fitting tribute to a life served making movies better.